APPEAL TO THE WOMEN . ' ' ' 

' ' . OF THE" . ' ' _ - 

NOMINALLY FREE STATES, 

ISSUED BY AN 

ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION 

OF • . " • ' 

AMERICAN WOMEN. 

Held by adjournments from the 9th to the 12th of May, 1837. 




We are thy sisters. — God has truly said, 

That of one blood the nations He has made. 

Oh, Christian woman ! in a Christian land, 

Canst thou unblushing lead this great command >. 

Surfer the wrongs which wring our inmost heart, 

To draw one throb of pity on thy part! 

Our skins may differ, but from thee we claim 

A sister's privilege, and a sister's name. — Sarah Forten, 



iScconti 2E&ttforu 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY ISAAC KNAPP, 

25 COENHILL. 

1838: 



■ 

Harden & Kimball, Printers, 
JiTo. 3 School Street. 



APPEAL 
TO THE WOMEN 

OE.THE 

NOMINALLY FREE STATES. 



"The trembling earth, the Jow murmuring thunders, already admonish us of our 
danger; and if females can exert, any saving infiuencein this emergency, it is time Jot 
them to awu/ic."— Cat-Harine E. Beecher. 



Beloved Sisters — 

The wrongs of outraged millions, and the foreshadows 
of coming judgments, constrain us, under a solemn sense 
of responsibility, to press upon your consideration the 
subject of American Slavery. The women of the North 
have - high and holy duties to perform in the work of 
emancipation- — duties to. themselves, to the suffering 
slave, to the slaveholder, to the- church, to their country, 
and to the world at large ; and, above all, to their God. 
Duties which, if not performed ; now, may never be per- 
formed at all. 

Multitudes will doubtless deem such an address iH- 
i timed and ill-directed. Many regard the excitement pro- 
duced by the agitation of this subject as an evidence of 
the impolicy of free discussion, and a sufficient excuse 
j for their own inactivity. Others so undervalue the rights 
and responsibilities of woman, as to scoff and gainsay 
whenever she goes forth to duties beyond the parlor and 
the nursery. The cry of such is, that the agitation of 
! this subject has rolled back the cause of emancipation 50 
or 100, or it may be 200 years, and that this is a political 
subject with which women have nothing to do. To the 
first, we would reply, that the people of the South are 
*he best judges of the effects of Anti-slavery discussions 
upon their favorite '' domestic institution ;" and the Uni- 
versal alarm which has spread through the slave States, 
is conclusive evidence of ' their conviction that slavery 



4 



APPEAL. 



cannot survive discussion. They know full well, that this 
terrific Upas must fall when the axe of free discussion is 
laid at its root. " From how many statesmen at the South 
has not the confession been extorted — extorted by the 
remorse and fear which they could neither dissipate nor 
conceal — that the infamy with which they are already 
branded by all the philanthropists of Christendom, was 
fast becoming insupportable ! The plunder of our goods 
we do not dread, they exclaim ; but what is more to be 
deprecated, the loss of character. What can our goods be 
worth, while we are constrained to bear the scorn and exe- 
cration of the civilized world, as a nest of pirates?" A sim- 
ilar sentiment was uttered by John C. Calhoun, in speak- 
ing of his Southern opponents, in the session of Congress 
1835, in the Senate. " Do they expect the Abolitionists 
will resort to arms, and commence a crusade to liberate 
our slaves by force ? Is this what they mean wh,en they 
speak of the attempt to abolish slavery ? If so, let me 
tell our friends of the South who differ from us, that the 
war which the Abolitionists wage against us, is of a very 
different character, and far more effective ; it is 
waged not against our lives, but our character." Gen. 
Duff Green, the Editor of the United States Telegraph, 
and the great champion of " Southern rights," has ex- 
pressed the same views : "We believe we have most to 
fear from the organized action upon the consciences and 
fear of the slaveholders themselves, from the insinuation of 
their (abolitionists) dangerous heresies into our schools, 
our pulpits, and our domestic circles. It is only by 
alarming the consciences of the weak and feeble, and 
diffusing among our own people a morbid sensibility on 
the question of slavery, that the abolitionists can accom- 
plish their object." 

Here then is the unequivocal testimony of Southerners 
as to what they expect to be the influence of free discus- 
sion. Has this expectation been realized ? Has the 
conscience of the slaveholder been reached ? In answer 
to these enquiries, we quote from a work recently pub- 
lished by James Smylie, a Presbyterian minister of the 
Amite Presbytery. " From his intercourse with religious 
societies of all denominations in Mississippi and Louisiana 



A.PPEA.L* 



he was aware*' that the abolition maxim, viz : thai slavery 
is in itself sinful, had gained on and entwined itself among 
the religious and conscientious scruples of many in the com- 
munity so far as to render them unhappy. The eye of 
the mind, resting on slavery itself as a corrupt fountain, 
from which, of necessity, nothing b ut cor rupi streams could 
flow, was incessanihj employed in search of some plan by 
which, with safety, the fountain could, in some future 
time, be entirely dried up/' An illustration of this im- 
portant acknowledgment, will be found in the folloAving 
fact, extracted from the Herald of Freedom : "A young 
gentleman who has been residing in S. Carolina says, our 
movements (abolitionists) are producing the best effects 
upon the South, rousing the consciences of slaveholdei'S, 
while the slaves seem to be impressed as a body with the 
idea that help is coming — that an interest is felt for 
them, and plans devising for their relief somewhere — 
which keeps them quiet. He says it is not uncommon 
for ministers and good people to make confession like 
this. One, riding with him broke forth, ' O, I fear that 
the groans and wails from our slaves enter into the ear 
of the Lord of Sabaoth. I am distressed on this subject: 
my conscience will let me have no peace. I go to bed, but 
not to sleep. I walk my room in agony, and resolve that 
I will never hold slaves another day ; but in the morning 
my heart, like Pharaoh's, is hardened.' 

•'And there are others who have liberated their slaves 
to the number of 500 or 600. Others, again, are weep- 
ing in secret places over the abominations of slav ery, and 
praying for the success of our efforts. These things we 
have learned from Southern lips, and Southern pens. Let 
them stimulate us to unremitted effort to ' deliver him that 
is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest the fury 
of the Lord go out like fire, and burn that none can 
quench it, because of the evil of our doings ' as a nation." 

To the second objection, that slavery is a political 
question, we would say : every citizen should feel an in- 
tense interest in the political concerns of the country, be- 
cause the honor, happiness, and well-being of every class, 
are bound up in its politics, government and laws. Are 
we aliens because we are women ? Are we bereft of citi- 
1* 



6 



APPEAL. 



zenship because we are the mothers, wives, and daughters 
of a mighty people ? Have women no country — no in- 
terest staked in public weal — no liabilities in common 
peril — no partnership in a nation's guilt and shame ? — 
Has woman no home nor household altars, nor endearing 
ties of kindred, nor sway with man, nor power at a mer- 
cy seat, nor voice to cheer, nor hand to raise the droop- 
ing and to bind the broken ? 

But before wo can appreciate the bearings of this sub- 
ject, and our duties with regard to it, we must first know 
what slavery is ; and then trace out its manifold and 
monstrous relations. We can thus discover whether wo- 
men have any duties to discharge in its abolition. We 
will then attempt to show why Northern women should 
labor for its overthrow, and lastly how they can aid ir 
this work of faith, and labor of love. 

What then is slavery ? It is that crime which cast- 
man down from that exaltation where God has placec 
him, C{ a little lower than the angels, " and sinks him to ; 
level with the beasts of the field. This intelligent anr 
immortal being is confounded with the brutes that perish 
he whose spirit was formed to rise in aspirations of grati 
tude and praise whilst here, and to spend an eternity witl ; 
God in heaven, is herded with the beasts, whose spirit: 
go downward with their bodies of clay to the dust o 
which they were made. Slavery is that crime by whicl 
man is robbed of his inalienable right to liberty, and tht" 
pursuit of happiness, the diadem of glory and honor wit! 
which he was crowned, and that sceptre of dominion whicl 
was placed in his hand when he was ushered upon th< 
theatre of creation, and was divinely commissioned tc 
"have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over th( 
fowls of the air, and overjhe cattle, and over all the earth 
and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.' 
Slavery throws confusion into the arrangements of Infi 
nite Wisdom, breaks up the divine harmony, and tears u[ 
the very foundations of human society. It produces i 
state of things at war with nature, and hence those unnat- 
ural expedients to preserve this system from destruction: 
hence the severity of those laws which disgrace the stat- 
ute books of our Southern States. A compend of these 



APPEAL. 



7 



was published in 1827, by Judge Stroud of Philadelphia, 
and to this work we would refer our sisters for a full and 
correct exposition of American slavery. Let us first hear 
what a slave is according to the laws of South Carolina. 
" Slaves shall be deemed, taken and reputed and adjudg- 
ed in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their mas- 
ters, owners, and possessors, and their executors, admin- 
istrators and assigns, to all intents, constructions and pur- 
poses whatsoever." As " chattels personal," they are held 
in 12 of the Southern States, but in Louisiana they are 
held as real estate. Her law runs thus : " Slaves shall 
always be reputed and considered as real estate, shall be 
as such subject to be mortgaged according to the rules 
Iprescribed by law, and they shall be seized and sold as 
ireal estate." She further says " A slave is one who is in 
he power of the master to whom he belongs. The mas- 
ter may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and 
his labor ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor ac- 
quire any thing but what must belong to his master." In 
' he one case he is held as bank stock, or the shares in a 
^ail-road company, in the other as houses' or lands. In 
-Doth he is equally liable to be seized at any time, and 
Bold for the debts of a living or deceased master. These 
definitions of a slave, then, plainly declare, "that the slave 
|s not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things 
s an article of property, a chattel personal." The 
tiode therefore which has been framed to keep this ration- 
ill being on a level with the brutes, this sentient creature 
on an equality with inanimate objects, must necessarily 
oe terribly severe, a permanent index to the hearts of 
hose who framed it, and those who, although invested 
vith the power, refuse to abrogate it. The following car- 
.olleries are amply sustained by the language of the 
'lave codes themselves : 

- I. Man, created in the image of God, is reduced to a 
thing. 

II. Man is robbed of his " inalienable right to liberty," 
-nd is held in perpetual captivity. 

III. Man can own no property, and is daily plundered 
of the fruits of his toil. Says God, " The laborer is worthy 
of his hire :" says the slaveholder, " I will yoke him 
with the brutes, and he shall toil for me." 



APPEAL, 



IV". Man tc cah make no contract." God has estab* 
lishedthe marriage relation; and Christ has said, "What 
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asun- 
der." The slaveholder denies the right, and forbids to 
marry; Not a single slave in the United States is legally 
married. The nominal marriages which they contract 
may be broken at any time by the master, and are contin- 
ually and most cruelly sundered every day. Look, then, 
at the awful state of concubinage to which two millions 
and a quarter of our citizens are reduced, by the statute 
laws of our land. 

V. Man is denied the benefits of education, and com- 
pelled to disobey the divine command to " search the 
Scriptures :" they are a sealed book to him — sealed by 
the express provisions of the legal code of the South. 

VI. Man is required to yield unqualified submission to 
his fellow man — ay, and woman, too, is bound to submit, 
and become the unconsenting victim of unspeakable in- 
dignities. Resistance may be punished with death. 
g^.VII. Man is thrown entirely out of the protection 01 
law : the murder of the slave is legalized in four different 
ways ; and the same laws which reduce him to the con- 
dition of the brute, and deny him legal protection, punish 
him with unparalleled severity. In Virginia, there are 
seventy-one offences for which the slave may suffer death, 
and thirty-six in South Carolina. In all these cases, we 
must remember he is denied the right of a presentation 
by a grand jury, and. a trial by a petit jury — and this, too, 
in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States. 

VIII. Man is deprived of all hope of redemption from 
this horrible condition, either for himself, his wife, or his 
children. Slavery is to be (according to the slave laws) 
" hereditary and perpetual." 

Here, then, is a faint description of American slavery. 
This is the republican despotism under which the slaves 
of our country are groaning out a life of ignorance, deg- 
radation, and anguish. Let every American citizen 
ponder this question, which bears with momentous power 
on the destinies of our country, whether we regard it in 
a political, a moral, or a religious point of view. 



APPEAL. 



9 



SLAVERY A POLITICAL SUBJECT. 

I. Let us first look at it as a political subject. Such 
incongruous elements as freedom and slavery, republican- 
ism and despotism, cannot long exist together; the unnat- 
ural and unhallowed union between these things must 
sooner or later be broken. Not only are one-sixth part of 
the inhabitants of this republic held in abject slavery, but 
the free and the slave States are unequally yoked togeth- 
er — they do not enjoy equal privileges. In the former, 
persons only are represented in our National Congress; 
in the latter, properly as well as persons send their repre- 
sentatives there. The slaveholding and non-slaveholding 
States have antagonist interests, which are continually 
conflicting, and producing jealousies and heart-burnings 
between the contending parties. Our Congressional de- 
bates have presented one unvaried scene of unreasonable 
demands and haughty threats on the one hand — of tame 
compromise, and unmanly, and in many cases most unprin- 
cipled submission on the other. Slavery not only robs the 
slave of all his rights as a man in thirteen of the States 
of this Confederacy, but it vaults over the barrier of Ma- 
son's and Dixon's line, swims the Ohio and the Potomac, 
and bribes Northern citizens to kidnap and enslave free- 
men of the North — drags them into hopeless bondage, 
and sells them under the hammer of the auctioneer. 
Not only so — it outlaws every Northerner who openly 
avows the sentiments of the Declaration of our Independ- 
ence, and destroys the free communication of our senti- 
ments through the medium of the mail, so that the daugh- 
ters of America cannot now send the productions of their 
pen to the parent who resides in a slaveholding State. It 
threatens even our Representatives in Congress with as- 
sassination, if they dare to open their lips in defence of 
the rights of the oppressed and the dumb — tramples in 
the dust the right of petition, when exercised by free men 
and free women — brands them with the opprobrious epi- 
thets of " white slaves" and " devils,? and rides triumph- 
ant over the bowed heads of the senators and representa- 
tives of our free States. Slavery nurses within the bosom 
of our country her deadliest foes, and threatens to bring 



10 



AFFEAL, 



down the *\ exterminating thunders ." of divine vengeance 
upon our guilty heads. . "The dark spirit of slavery " 
rules. in our national councils, and menaces the severance 
of> the bonds which bind together these United States, 
and to shake from our star-spangled banner, as with a 
mighty wind/ those glittering emblems of our country's 
pre-eminence among the nations of the earth, and to burn 
our Declaration as a " splendid absurdity," a " rhetorical 
flourish ;" to offer the glorious charter of our constitu- 
tional liberties and alliance upon the same altar — to the 
horns of which the bleeding slave is now bound by the 
chain of his servitude, and the colored freeman by " the 
cord of caste." " • 

This is a very imperfect outline of the political bear- 
ings of this great question ; and it is gravely urged, that 
as it is a political subject, women have no concernment 
with it : this doctrine of the North is a sycophantic re- 
sponse to the declaration of a Southern representative, 
that women have no right to send up petitions to Congress. 
We know, dear sisters, that the open and the secret ene- 
mies of freedom in our country have dreaded our influ- 
ence, and therefore have reprobated our interference ; and 
in order to blind us to our responsibilities, have thrown 
dust into our eyes, well knowing that if the organ of vis- 
ion is only clear, the whole body the moving and acting 
faculties will become full of light, and will soon be thrown 
into powerful action. Some, who pretend to be very jeal- 
ous for the honor of our sex, and are very anxious that 
we should scrupulously maintain the dignity and delicacy 
of female propriety, continually urge this objection to 
female effort. We grant that it is a political, as well as 
a moral subject : does this exonerate women from their 
duties as subjects of the government, as members of the 
great human family ? Have women never wisely and 
laudably exercised political responsibilities ? 

When the Lord led out his chosen people like a flock 
into the wilderness, from the house of bondage, was it 
not a woman whom He sent before them with Moses and 
Aaron ? Did she not lead her manumitted sisters in that 
sublime peon of thanksgiving and praise which ascended 
from their grateful hearts as they answered the chorus of 



APPEAL. 



11 



their brethren with the inspired words, "Sing ye* to the 
Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously : the horse and his' 
rider hath he thrown into the sea." And was not the de- 
liverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage a political con- 
cern ? Did it not shake the throne of the Pharaohs, 
( desolate the land of Egypt, and strike terror into the 
stubborn hearts of subtle politicians. Miriam then inter- 
fered with the political concerns of Egypt ; and we doubt 
I'&qt, had the monarch been permitted to lay his hand upon 
the sister of Moses, she would have suffered as a leader 
in this daring attempt to lead out her sisters from the 
! house of bondage. Would not her fate have been simi- 
lar to that of the heroine of the fifteenth century ? 

When Barak received the divine command to go down 
to Mount Tabor, and the promise that with ten thousand 
men he should overcome the hosts of Sisera with their 
iron chariots, to whom did he appeal in those memorable 
words — ff If thou wilt go with me, then I will go ■; but if 
tiwu wilt not go with me, then I will not go ?" It was to 
Deborah ; and this woman intermeddled so far with the 
political concerns of Israel, as to go up with him to the 
battle ; and when, as she predicted, Sisera was sold into 
the hands of a woman, she united with Barak in a song 
of triumphant praise, that the ancient Kishon had swept 
down in the current of its waters the lifeless bodies of 
the Canaanitish warriors. 

But many seem to think, that although women may 
have been called to the performance of extraordinary du- 
ties in the days of miracle and of inspiration, that under 
no other circumstances could such conduct have been 
warranted. Let us turn, then, to the history of Rome. 
When Coriolanus, who had been banished by the Roman 
Senate, returned with a host of barbarians, to wreak his 
vengeance upon the proud mistress of the world, and after 
the embassies of senators, and priests, and augurs, had 
failed-to move his unrelenting heart, who were sent out 
to try the magic power of their tears and prayers ? Were 
they not the wife and mother of the Roman warrior, and 
were they not followed by a train of matrons, who ap- 
proached the Volsciancamp to plead their country 's cause ? 
And what was the success of this embassage of mercy 



APPEAL. 



and of love ? The hero's icy heart was melted by the 
tears and pleadings of these feebler ones : he bowed his 
stubborn will to theirs, turned back his disappointed free- 
booters from the gates of Rome, arid^sent these women 
home with the glad tidings of peace upon their trembling 
lips. 

But. perhaps the sage objector may say, "True ; but 
these women were delegated by the Roman Senate — they 
were vested with authority by ' the powers that be ' — 
ikey did not rush uncalled into the field of action." Was 
this, then, their commission for intermeddling with the 
political concerns of their country ? Where, then, was 
the commission of those Sabine women, who threw them- 
selves between the hostile armies, when they were just 
about plunging their javelins into the hearts of their own 
fathers, brothers, and sons ? Were they deputed by the 
Roman Senate? No ! they held higher credentials. The 
angel of mercy commissioned them each to do and to dare 
all that might become a woman, in such a fearful hour of 
agony and boding. They rushed between the embattled 
hosts. At the sight of their tears and prayers, the iron 
grasp relaxed— -the weapons fell — and they who met in 
hate to kill, embraced in love, and thenceforth mingled 
into one. These women poured the assuasive oil over 
the troubled waters of strife. Woman became the healer 
of breaches — the restorer of paths to dwell in. 

But are these the doings of olden time alone ? are there 
no instances of woman's " interference " in modern his- 
tory ? About the middle of the fifteenth century, when 
the kingdom of France had fallen, and the infant monarch 
of England had placed her crown upon his youthful head, 
lo! a' woman arose as the deliverer of her country. She 
led on the broken spirited troops of France to the siege 
of Orleans, 1428 — compelled the English to surrender — 
conducted Charles the Seventh to the city of Rheims — 
witnessed the coronation of the astonished prince — -and 
then retired from the plaudits of a grateful nation, who 
hailed the deliverance she had wrought as almost miracu- 
lous. And who was this Joan of Arc ? An uneducated 
country girl, who stepped so far beyond the sphere of her 
humble duties, as the servant of a tavern-keeper, as to 



APPEAL. 



13 



intermeddle with the political concerns of one of the great- 
est kingdoms of Europe. What wonderful presumption ! 
No marvel, then, that she suffered the penalty of her 
strange temerity, being burned alive as a witch, by the 
English, in the town of Rouen. 

But let us turn over the pages of our own history. When 
the British army had taken possession of our beautiful 
city of brotherly love, who arose at midnight to listen to 
the plots which were laid in an upper chamber, by Gene- 
ral Howe in his council of war ? It was a woman ; and 
when she stole the secret from their unconscious lips, she 
kept it locked within her own bosom, until under an inge- 
nious pretext she repaired to Frankford, gained an inter- 
view with Washington, and disclosed to him the important 
intelligence which saved the lives of her countrymen. 
Did Lydia Darrah confer a benefit upon the American 
army — did she perform the duties of an American citizen ? 
Or, was this act an impertinent intermeddling with the 
political concerns of her country, with which, as a*ivoman, 
she had nothing to do ? Let the daughters of this re- 
public answer the question.* 

It is related of Buonaparte, that he one day rebuked a 
French lady for busying herself with politics. "Sire," 
replied she, " in a country Where women are put to death, 
it is very natural that women should wish to know the 
reason why." And, dear sisters, in a country where 
women are degraded and brutalized, and where their 
exposed persons bleed under the lash — where they are 
sold in the shambles of " negro brokers " — robbed of their 
hard earnings — torn from their husbands, and forcibly 
■ plundered of their virtue and their offspring ; surely in such 
a country, it is very natural that women should wish to know 
"the reason why" — especially when these outrages of 
blood and nameless horror are practiced in violation of 
the principles of our national Bill of Rights and the Pre- 
amble of our Constitution. W^e do not, then, and cannot 
concede the position, that because this is a 'political sub- 

* We would here remark, that these instances of interference on the part of women 
of different ages and countries, in the political concerns of states and kingdoms, are 
not cited as apprvbatory of the measures they employed, but as illustrations of the 
principle that women are citizens, and that they have important duties to perform for 
their country. 

2 



14 



APPEAL. 



ject women ought to fold their hands in idleness, and close 
their ' eyes and ears to the " horrible things " that are 
practiced in our land. The denial of our duty to act, is a 
bold denial of our right to act ; and if we have no right to 
act, then may we well be termed " the white slaves of the 
North for, like our brethren in bonds, we must seal 
our lips in silence and despair. 

SLAVERY A MORAL SUBJECT. . 

II. This, however, is not merely a political subject; it 
is highly moralj and as such claims the attention of every 
moral being. Slavery exerts a most deadly influence over 
the morals of our country, not only over that portion- of it 
where it actually exists us " a domestic institution," but 
like the miasma of some pestilential pool, it spreads its 
desolating influence far. beyond its own boundaries. Who 
does not know that licentiousness -is- a crying sin at the 
North as well as at the South ?. and who does not admit 
that the manners of the South in this respect have had a 
wide and destructive- influence on Northern character? 
Can crime be fashionable and common in one part of the 
Union and unrebuked by the other without'Corrupting the 
very heart's blood of the nation, and lowering the standard 
of morality everywhere ? Can Northern men go down 
to the well-wafered plains of the South to make their for-* 
tunes, without bowing themselves in the house of Rim- 
mon and drinking of the waters of that river of pollution 
y/hich rolls over the plain of Sodom and Gomorrah ? Do 
they return uncontaminated to their homes, or does not 
many and many a Northerner dig the grave of his virtue in 
the Admahs and Zeboims of our Southern States. And 
can our theological and academic institutions be opened to 
the sons of the planter without endangering the purity of 
the morals of our own sons, by associations with men 
who regard the robbery of the poor as no crime, and op- 
pression as no wrong ? Impossible ! 

Then, again, the interest of the North and the South 
are closely interwoven; and this circumstance has con- 
tributed to blind the eyes of the North to the sin of the 
slaveholder, and to steel his heart against the sufferings 
pf the helpless slave. She has learned tp look with cold 



APPEAL. 



15 



indifference, if not with approbation* uponthat organized , 
system of robbery which is dignified with the mild, epithet 
of " peculiar institution of the "South," and to hear un- 
moved those wailings of agony and despair which come 
up from the sultry. fields of Louisiana and Mississippi, 
Alabama, and Georgia. Yes,- so demoralizing has been 
the influence of Southern commerce" and Southern custom 
of.dollars and of cents, that millions, in .the free States- 
stand up on the side of the oppressor, 'and pour out all 
tho sympathies', of their souls into the bosoms -of tho'se 
who buy and sell and degrade and brutalize their fellow- 
creatures. What further need have we> of- evidence that 
the North has been, most deeply corrupted, than ^he fact' 
that fee** hands are busy in daubing this idol temple with- 
uhterripered mortar, and her lips in crying peace! peace! 
to.the South, when-God has declared, " there is no peace 
to the wicked." .. Look, top, at her-citizens, even" her min- 
isters becoming slaveholders and marrying slaveholders, 
instead of rebuking this presumptuous insurrection against 
the rights of God and man, and refusing to b.e partakers in 
their evil deeds. But this is not all ; our people have 
erected a false standard by which to judge of men's char- 
acter. Because in the slaveholding States colored men 
are plundered and kept in abject ignorance, are treated 
with disdain and scorn, so here, too, in profound defer- 
ence to the South, we refuse to eat, or. ride,. or walk, or 
associate, or open our institutions of learning, or even oui? 
zoological institutions to people of "color, unless they visit 
them in the capacity of servants, of menials in humble 
attendance upon the Anglo-American.* Who ever heard . 
of a more wicked absurdity in a Republican country ? 
. Have Northern women, then, nothing to do with slavery, 
when its demoralizing influence is polluting their, domestic 
circles and- blasting the fair-character of their- eons and 
brothers? Nothing to do with slavery whewtheir domes- 
tics are often dragged by the merciless kidnapper from 
the hearth-of their nurseries and the arms of their little 
ones? Nothing to do with slavery when Northern women 

*The restriction to which- we" allu.de is contained in the following extract from the 
pamphlet puhlished'hy the Institute.. •" The proprietors loish it to be understood, that 
p*:<.rLE of'cdlo'r. are not' permitted to enter • ex< srj whe.v ys ATTk>DA.-st:i; i'pjv 

CHILDHJT> USD FAMILIES." . ■ ' . * 



16 



APPEAL, 



are chanied and driven like criminals, and incarcerated in 
the great prison-house of the South? Nothing to do with 
slavery? — but we forbear, and pass on to consider it in a 
religious point of view. 

SLAVERY A RELIGIOUS SUBJECT. 

III. It is as a religious question that we regard it as 
most important. O ! it is when we look at the effort made 
by slaveholders to destroy the mind of the slave that we 
fear and tremble. " It is," says the North Carolina Man- 
umission Society, in 1826, " the maxim of slave-masters 
in common with other tyrants, the more ignorance the 
more safety." Hear, too, the language of Berry in the 
Virginia House of Delegates, in 1832. " We have, as 
far as possible, closed every avenue by which light might 
enter their minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to 
see the light, our work would be completed; they would 
be on a level with the beasts of the field, and we should 
be safe. I am not certain that we would not do it, if we 
could find out the necessary process — and that under the 
plea of necessity." And these testimonies are corrobo- 
rated by James A. Thome, a minister of the Gospel, of 
Kentucky. "The plantations of the South are grave- 
yards of the mind, the inexpressive countenances of the 
slaves are monuments of souls expired, and their spirit- 
less eyes their epitaphs." And Robert J. Breckenridge, 
of Baltimore, affirms, that one feature of American slavery 
is, "to deprive them of the means and opportunities of 
moral and intellectual culture." 

Not only are the means of mental improvement withheld 
from the slave, but the opportunities of receiving moral 
culture also. Not only is the privilege of learning to 
read and write, &c. denied, but no provision is made by 
law for his religious instruction, and hardly any by the 
church or the master. Indeed the slaveholder possesses 
legally supreme dominion over the soul of his slave. This 
was admitted .in 1831, by C. C. Jones, now a professor in 
the Theological Seminary of Columbia, South Carolina, in 
a sermon preached by him before two associations of plant- 
ers in Georgia. These are his own words, — " In the ex- 
ercise of that supreme power over them, vested in us by 



* 



APPEAL. 



the laws of 'our country , we can For.bid any man's corning 
on our- plantations for the purpose of religiously -instruct- 
ing them — we can forbid all meetings for religious pur- 
poses on our plantations — we can refuse to instruct them 
ourselves — we tan forbid them the privileges of God's 
sanctuary on the Sabbath — we cmn literally bar the door 
of entrance into Heaven against them j nor is there any 
power in our governmen that can compel us to swerve a 
fiair from such treatment of them. The moral destinies 
of these people are submitted to our disposal." Here 
then is the despotic power with which every slaveholder 
in our land is vested. We would now ask, "do they exer- 
cise it ?. We appeal to the South for an -answer. We 
condemn her not by northern testimony, but out of her own 
mo.uth,. What is the condition of her slaves ? In the same 
sermon from which the above extract is taken, we find 
the following : — "The description which the apostle Paul 
in his epistle to the Remans gives of the heathen world, 
will apply with very little abatement, to our negroes. . . . 
Chastity is an exceeding rare virtue. Poligamy is com^- 
mon, and there is little sacredness attached to the marriage 
"contract. It is entered into for the most part without 
established forms and is dissolved at the will of the par- 
ties.* Nor is there any sacredness attached to the Sab- 
bath. It is a day of idleness and sleep, of sinful amuse- 
ment, of visiting and of labor. Numbers of them do not 
go to church, and cannot tell who Jesus Christ is, nor 
have they ever heard so much as the ten commandments 
read and explained. Of the professors of religion among 
them, there are many of questionable piety, who occa- 
sion the different churches great trouble in discipline, 
for they are extremely ignorant, and frequently are 
guilty of the grossest vices. Generally speaking, they 
appear to us to be without hope and without God in the 

World. A NATION OF HEATHEN IN OUR VERY MIDST. 

And if we believe the testimony of our own eyes* and 
ears, and the testimony of those who know these people 
most intimately, we must conclude that they need the 
Gospel, and need it as much as any people in the 
world. We have been shocked at the death of 40,000 

* Just as frequently at the will of tyrannical masters. 

2* 



IB 



APPEAL, 



men annually, by intemperance. But it is probable that 
as many die annually among the negroes in slaveholding 
states, whose death is equally as hopeless as that of the 
drunkard, and yet we have not thought of this, neither 
have we felt it. The majority do not hear the Gospel 
for weeks and months together. But whenever the 
negroes hear the preaching of the Gospel, they hear it 
to a very great disadvantage. The sermons are almost 
wholly delivered to their masters, and are not only for 
the greater part inapplicable to them, but entirely above 
their comprehension, both as to language and thought. 
The gospel is preached to them in an unknown tongue. 
Many of them are guilty of notorious sins and know not 
that they are sins at all." 

We might quote more abundantly from official Southern 
testimony, but these have so often been printed and re- 
printed that we have purposely avoided introducing them 
into this address. We feel then that the supreme power 
of the master over his slaves has been put forth, not " to 
compel them to come".into the gospel kingdom, but to keep 
them in the lowest possible state of ignorance, degrada- 
tion, and crime. Have Northern women then nothing to 
do with this "nation of heathen in our very midst?" 
Shall we pour our treasures into the funds of the Foreign 
Missionary Society to send the glad tidings of redeeming 
love to " the isles of the Gentiles," to Russia and Greece, 
to China and Burmah, and the coast of Africa, and yet sit 
down in indifference to the perishing souls of our own coun- 
trymen? Shall we busy ourselves to send the Bible to 
nations afar off, and yet neglect to do all that our hands 
and lips and pens and purses can do, to induce the South 
to abolish a system which forbids almost entirely the la- 
bors of missionaries among one half of her population, and 
altogether seals up the pages of divine inspiration to them ? 
Nothing to do with slavery ! O ! our sisters, some of us 
feel ready to exclaim — if we forget the complicated 
wrongs of our brethren and sisters in chains, let our right 
hands forget their cunning ! If we remember not " them 
that are in bonds as bound with them," and plead not the 
caase of the dumb, let our tongues cleave to the roofs of 
our mouths, if we prefer not to suffer reproach and afllic- 



APPEAL. 



19 



tions for these outraged ones, to all the joys of worldly 
power and human praise. Nothing to do with slavery ! 
Then we would ask, what have we to do with the frantic 
screams of that Hindoo widow who ascends the funeral pile 
of her husband, and offers upher own body a living sacrifice 
to the demon of superstition? What have we to do with 
that Indian mother who plunges her innocent babe into 
the Ganges? or with that father who, when it lifts its little 
hands for help, strikes it down with the paddle of his 
boat? What have we to do with the Sumatrian who 
carries his decrepit parent into the pathless woods, and 
leaves him to perish with hunger and thirst? Ah ! dear 
sisters, we know that as human beings and as Christians, 
we are " debtors, both to the Greeks and to the Barbari- 
ans" of other lands ; and are we not much more so to the 
bond and the heathen of our own ? 

We have hitherto addressed you more as moral and re- 
sponsible beings, than in the distinctive character of wo- 
men ; we have appealed to you on the broad ground of 
human rights and human responsibilities, rather than on 
that of your peculiar duties as women. We have pursued 
this course of argument designedly, because, in order to 
prove that you have any duties to perform, it is necessary 
first to establish the principle of moral being — for all our 
rights and all our duties grow out of this principle. All 
moral beings have essentially the same rights and the same 
duties, whether they be male or female. This is a truth the 
world has yet to learn, though she has had the experience 
of fifty-eight centuries by which to acquire the knowledge 
of this fundamental axiom. Ignorance of this has involved 
her in great inconsistencies, greaterrors, and great crimes, 
and hurled confusion over that beautiful and harmonious 
structure of human society, which infinite wisdom had 
established. We will now endeavor to enumerate some 
reasons why we believe Northern women, as women, are 
solemnly called upon to labor in the great and glorious 
work of emancipation. 

I. SLAVE-TRADE SANCTIONED BY A WOMAN. 

"We know that our country is very anxious to throw 
all the blame of the origin of slavery here upon England, 



APPEAL. 



although it; is a well-established fact, that the first slaves 
ever introduced into the colonies,, were voluntarily pur- 
chased by the colonists from a Dutch vessel in 1620. 
Upon the head of England, however, we pour the execra- 
tions of our wrath for having brought upon us the curse of 
slavery. . Let us now turn over the pages of her history to 
find out who filled her throne at the time that Captain 
Hawkins was authorized to carry on the horrible traffic of 
the slave trade. It was a woman! This first British pirate 
on the coast of Africa, assisted by some rich persons in 
London, fitted out -three shi ps, and sailed to Africa, where 
he plundered the towns and carried off. three hundred 
of the defenceless inhabitants to Hispaniola. This no- 
ble exploit of Christian chivalry was followed by the ex- 
press authority of Elizabeth, to perpetrate a series of 
such depredations upon the shores of this devoted conti- 
nent.* If then, a woman was the first British Sovereign 
who legalized the African slave-trade, through whose in- 
strumentality so many thousands of the victims of oppres- 
sion have been brought to our land, then women are bound 
to do all they can to exterminate the evil which woman 
exerted, her power and authority. to bring upon our coun- 
try and the world. 

II. WOMEN THE VICTIMS OF SLAVERY* 

- Out of the millions of slaves who have been stolen from 
Africa, a very great number must have been'women who 
were torn from the arms of their fathers and husbands, 
brothers and children, and subjected to all the horrors of 
the middle passage and the still greater, sufferings' .of 
slavery in-a foreign land. Multitudes ofthe.se were cast 
upon our inhospitable shores ; some of them now foil out 
a life of bondage, " one hour of which is fraught with 
more misery than ages of that" which our fathers rose in 
rebellion to oppose. But the great mass of female slaves 
in the southern States are the descendants of these hap- 
less strangers ; 1,000,000 of them now wear the iron 
yoke of slavery in this land of boasted liberty and law. 

* Perhaps it is but justice to the Queen to say, that at the very time she granted 
this commission to Hawkins, " she expressed her concern lest any of the Africans 
should be carried off without their free consent, declaring that such* a thing would be 
detestable, and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers." 



APPEAL. 



21 



They are our country women — they are our sisters; and to 
us, as women, they have a right to look for sympathy with 
their sorrows, and effort and prayer for their rescue. 
Upon -those of us especially who have named the name 
of Christ, they have peculiar claims, and claims which 
we must answer, or we shall incur a heavy load of guilt. 

Women, too, are constituted by nature the peculiar 
guardians of children, and children are the victims of this 
horrible system. Helpless infancy is robbed of the ten- 
der care of the mother and the protection of the father. 
There are in this Christian land thousands of little chil- 
dren who have been made orphans by the "domestic in- 
stitution " of the South ; and whilst woman's hand is 
stretched out to gather in the orphans and the half or- 
phans whom death has made in our country, and to shel- 
ter them from the storms of adversity, O let us not 
forget the orphans whom crime has made in our midst; 
but let us plead the cause of these innocents. Let us ex- 
pose the heinous wickedness of the internal slave-trade. 
It is an organized system for the disruption of family ties, 
a manufactory of widows and orphans. 

III. WOMEN ARE SLAVEHOLDERS. 

Multitudes of tHo Southern iromeii hold men, wo- 
men and children as property. They are pampered in 
luxury, and nursed in the school of tyranny ; they sway 
the iron rod of power, and they rob the laborer of his 
hire. Immortal beings tremble at their nod, and bow in 
abject submission at their word, and under the cowskin 
too often wielded by their own delicate hands. Women 
at the South hold their own sisters and brothers in bond- 
age. Start not at this dreadful assertion — we speak that 
which some of us do know — we testify that which some 
of us have seen. Such facts ought to be known, that the 
women of the North may understand their duties, and be 
incited to perform them. 

Southern families often present the most disgusting 
scenes of dissension, in which the mistress acts a part 
derogatory to her own character as a woman. Jefferson 
has so exactly described the bitter fruits of slavery in the 
domestic circle that we cannot forbear re-quoting it : 



22- 



APPEAL. 



"The whole commerce between master and slave is. a 
perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the 
most unremitting despotism on the one hand, and degra- 
ding submission on the other. The parent storms, the 
child looks on, catches the . lineaments of wrath, puts on 
the same airs in a circle, of smaller slaves, gives loose to 
the worst of passions ; and thus nursed, educated and daily 
exercised in tyranny,' cannot but be stamped by it with 
odipus peculiarities. '* We wish this picture applied only 
to the "commerce between master and slave;" but we 
know that there are female tyrants too, who are prompt to 
lay their complaints of misconduct before .their, husbands, 
brothers and sons, and to urge them to commit acts of vio- 
lence against their helpless slaves. Others still more 
cruel, place the lash in the hands of some trusty domestic, 
and stand by whilst he lays the heavy strokes upon the 
unresisting Victim, deaf to the cries for mercy which rend 
the air, or rather the more enraged at such appeals, which 
are only answered by the Southern lady with the prompt 
command of "give her more for that." This work of 
chastisement is often performed by a brother, or other 
relative of the poor sufferer, which circumstance stings 
like an adder the very heart, of the slave while her body 

-writhes under the laoh._ Othor mietroccos xvho cannot 

bear that their delicate ears should be pained by the 
screams of the poor sufferers, write an order to the mas- 
ter of the Charleston work-house, or the New Orleans, 
calaboose, where they are most cruelly, stretched in order 
to render the stroke of the whip or the blow of the paddle 
mare certain to produce cuts and wounds which cause 
the blood to flow at every stroke. And let it be remem- 
bered that these poor creatures are often women who are 
mostindecently divested of their clothing and exposed to- 
the gaze of the executioner of a woman's command. 

What then, our beloved sisters, must be the efFecrs.of 
such a system upon the domestic character of the white 
females ? Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit ? Can 
such despotism mould the character of the Southern wo- 
man to gentleness and love? or may we not fairly con- 
clude that all that suavity, for which slaveholding ladies 
are so conspicuous, is in many instances the paint and 



APPEAL. 



23 



the varnish of hypocrisy, the fashionable polish of a 
heartless superficiality ?• . 

But it is not the character alone of the mistress that ig. 
deeply injured by the possession and exercise of such de- 
spotic power, nor is it the degradation and suffering to 
which the slave is continually subject ; but another impor- 
tant consideration is, that in consequence of the dreadful 
state of morals at the South, the wife and the daughter 
sometimes find their homes a scene of the 'most mortifying,, 
heart-rending preference of the degraded domestic, or the 
colored daughter of the head of the family. There are, 
alas, too many families, of which the contentions of Abra- 
ham's household is a fair example. But we forbear to 
lift the veil of private life any higher ; let these few hints 
suffice to give you some idea of what is daily passing be- 
hind that curtain which has been so carefully drawn be- 
fore the scenes of domestic life in Christian America. 

And now, dear .sisters, let us not forget that Northern 
women are participators in the crime of slavery — too ma- 
ny of us have surrendered our hearts and hands to the 
weafthyplanters of the South, and gone down with them 
to live on the unrequited toil of the slave. Too many 
of us have ourselves become slaveholders, our hearts have 
been- hardened under the searing influence of the system, 
and we, too, have learned to.be tyrants in the school of 
despots. Too few of us have replied to the matrimonial 
proposals of the slaveholder : 

" Go back, haughty Southron, thy treasures of gold 
Are dimned by the blood of the hearts thou hast sold ; 
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear ■ " • " 

The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear. 

• . Full low at thj bidding thy negroes may kneel, 

With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel; ■ 
Yet know that the Northerner sooner would be * - 

• in fetters with them than in freedom with thee.'" 

But let it. be so no longer. Let lis henceforward rosolve, 
that the women of the free States never again will barter 
their principles for the blood-bought luxuries of the South 
— never again will regard with complacency, much less 
with the tender sentiments of love, any man " who build- 
eth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by 



24 



APPEAL. 



wrong, that useth his neighbor's service without wages, 
and giveth him naught for his work." 

And there are others amongst us, who, though not 
slaveholders ourselves, yet have those who are nearest 
and dearest to us involved in this sin. Ah, yes! some of 
us have fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, who are 
living in the slave States, and are daily served by the un- 
remunerated servant; and for the enlightenment of these 
we are most solemnly bound to labor and to pray without 
ceasing. Vast responsibilities are rolled upon us by the 
fact that we believe we have received the truth on this 
subject, whilst they are in ignorance and error. Some 
Northern women too, are the wives of slaveholders, and 
of those who hold mortgages on the slaves of the South. 

IV. WOMEN USE THE PRODUCTS OF SLAVE LABOR. 

Multitudes of Northern women are daily making use 
of the products of slave labor. They are clothing them- 
selves and their families in the cotton, and eating the 
rice and the sugar which they well know has cost the 
slave his unrequited toil, his blood and his tears ; and 
if the maxim in law be founded in justice and truth, that 
" the receiver is as bad as the thief," how much greater 
the condemnation of those who not merely receive the 
stolen products of the slave's labor, but voluntarily pur- 
chase them, and continually appropriate them to their oxen 
use. 

We frequently meet with individuals who, though very 
particular in not using sugar which has been raised by 
the slave,. yet feel no compunction in purchasing slave- 
grown cotton, and assign as a reason, that there is not 
that waste of life in the culture of cotton, which attends 
that of sugar. But is there less waste of blood? We copy 
the following description of the whip which is made by 
JYorthern men, and used by Southern overseers on cotton 
plantations. " The staff is about 20 or 22 inches in 
length, with a large and heavy head, which is often load- 
ed with a quarter or half a pound of lead, wrapped in 
catgut, and securely fastened on, so that nothing but the 
greatest violence can separate it from the staff. The lash 
is 10 feet long, made of small strips of buckskin, tanned 



' - appeal 4 .. . • 25 

so as to be dry and hard, and plaited carefully and closely- 
together,' of -the thickness'in the larger part of' a main's 
little, finger, but -quite small at each .extremity. At the 
furthest end of . this thong is attached a cracker, nine 
inches in length, made of strong sewing silk, twisted and 
knotted, untilit feels as* firm as the hardest twine. 

This whip", in' an tin practiced hand, is a very, awkward 
and inefficient weapon ; but the best qualification of the 
overseerof a cotton plantation^ is the ability of using this 
whip with adroitness, and when wielded by an experien- 
ced arm it is one of t\\e:keenest instrument* of torture ever 
i-nvented by the ingenuity of man. The cat-o'-ninetails, 
lisedin the British military service, is but a clumsy in- 
strument beside this whip, which lias superseded the cow- 
hide,. the hickory, and every other species of lash on the 
'cotton plantations. The cowhide and the hi«kory bruise 
and mangle the flesh of the sufferer ; but this whip cuts, 
when expertly applied, almost as keen as a knife, and 
never bruises the flesh nor injures the bones." What then 
do cur sisters say to using cotton which is raised under 
the keen and cuiiing lash of this whip, by the mancipated 
mothers, wives and daughters of the South." Can these 
5 sulierers really believe we are remembering them that 

■ -are in bonds as bound iviih theui, whilst we freely use 
f what costs them so much agony ? 

And has the Lord uttered no rebuke to us in these fear- 
1 ful times ? Is there no lesson for 2(5 to learn in recent 
] events ? Who are the men that now weep and mcurn 

• over their broken fortunes — their ruined hopes? Are they 
J not the merchants and manufacturers, who have traded 

* largely in the unrequited labor of the slave ? Men who 
\ have joined hand in hand with the wicked, and entered 
f into covenant to. rivet the chains of the captive ? 

1 We are often told that free articles cannot be obtained ; 

[ but why not ? Our answer is, because there is so little 

■ demand for them. Only let the moral sense of the free 
c States become so pure and so elevated as to induce them 
; to refuse to purchase slave-grown products, and the man- 
1 ufacturers, and merchants, and grocers, will soon devise 
1 some plan by which to supply their factories and stores 

with free labor cotton and goods. But we may be asked 
3 



26 



APPEAL. 



what are we to do until the market is supplied ? We un- 
hesitatingly reply, suffer the inconvenience of deprivation, 
and then will you, dear sisters, become the favored instru- 
ments in the Lord's hand, of producing that change in 
public feeling which will lead to such action as will bring 
the desired supply into our market. We find that those 
who really wish to obtain such articles, are almost 
universally able to do so, if they will pay a little higher 
price, and be satisfied to wear what may not be of quite so 
good a quality; but it is frequently the case that even 
this trifling self-denial is not necessary. 

We would remind you of the course pursued by our 
revolutionary fathers and mothers when Great Britain 
levied upon her colonies what they regarded as unjust 
taxes. Read the words of the historian, and ponder well 
the noble self-denial of the men and women of this coun- 
try, when they considered their own liberties endangered 
by the encroachments of England's bad policy. Look, 
then, at the influence which their measures produced in 
making it the interest of the merchants and manufacturers 
in Great Britain to second the petitions of her colonies 
for a redress of grievances, and judge for yourselves 
whether the Southern planters would not gladly second the 
efforts of the abolitionists, by petitioning their National and 
State Legislatures for the abolition of slavery, if they 
found they could no longer sell their slave-grown produce. 

" In most departments, by common consent, business 
was carried on as though no Stamp Act had existed. This 
was accompanied by spirited resolutions to risk all conse- 
quences, rather than submit to use the paper required by 
law. While these matters were in agitation, the colonists 
entered into associations against importing British manu- 
factures, till the Stamp Act should be repealed. By sus- 
pending their future purchases on the repeal of the Stamp 
Act, the Colonists made it the interest of merchants and 
manufacturers to solicit for that repeal. They had usu- 
ally taken so great a proportion of British manufactures,, 
that the sudden stoppage of all their orders, amounting 
annually to two or three millions sterling, threw some 
thousands in the mother country out of employment, and 
induced them, from a regard to their own interests, to 



APPEAL. 



27 



advocate the measures wished for by America. The 
petitions by the Colonists were seconded by petitions 
from the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain. 
What the former prayed for as a matter of right and con- 
nected with their liberties, the latter also solicited from 
motives of immediate interest. 

" In order to remedy the deficiency of British goods, the 
colonists betook themselves to a variety of necessary 
domestic manufactures. In a little time large quantities 
of common cloths were brought to market ; and these, 
though dearer and of a ivorse quality, were cheerfully pre- 
ferred to similar articles imported from Britain. That 
wool might not be wanting, they entered into resolutions 
to abstain from eating lamb. Foreign elegancies were 
laid aside. The women were as exemplary as the men 
in various instances of self-denial. With great readiness 
they refused every article of decoration for their persons, 
and luxury for their tables. These restrictions, which 
the colonists had voluntarily imposed on themselves, 
were so well observed, that multitudes of artificers in 
England were reduced to great distress, and some of their 
most flourishing manufactories were in a great measure 
at a stand." — 'Ramsay's History, U. S., pp. 345-6. 

Would not a similar effect be produced in this country 
at litis time, if the women of the free States would prac- 
tice the same self-denial which distinguished our mothers. 
Let them refuse " every article of decoration for their per- 
sons and luxury for their tables," and of convenience and 
comfort, the use of which imposes upon the down-trodden 
slave not a paltry tax of pennies upon paper and tea, but 
the heavy tribute of tears, and groans, and blood, and 
perpetual bondage. 

Oi\r fathers and mothers were quick to discern the work- 
ing of the principle of oppression when it was applied to 
themselves : their necks were galled by the friction of a 
very easy yoke, and they were prompt to devise means 
and ways by which to rid themselves of it. But to us, 
dear sisters, is committed a far nobler work. We, are 
called upon, not to break the yoke which is fastened on 
our own necks, but to aid in the generous, disinterested 
effort to break asunder that which bows the heads of the 



as 



APPEAL, 



poor in' the very dust of degradation and wo. Wc are 
called upon by the cries of a people-'"' scattered aud'peeled, . 
meted out and trodden down, 3 ' toVoey the divine injunc- 
tion, " Deliver the- poor -and needy,, rid -them out of the 
hand of the wicked." Our fathers asserted their right to 
freedom at the point of the bayonet -arid the mouth of the ? 
cannon, but we repudiate all war and violence — "Our 
weapons are not carnal, but spiritual :". we wield no other 
sword than "the sword of the Spirit ;" we encounter the 
foes of freedom with "the word of "God," whilst our feet 
are. shod withthe preparation of the Gospel of peace, our 
breasts covered with the shield of faith, our heads with 
the helmet of salvation. We need no other armor, for 
this is a . moral conflict, and we know that "Truth is 
mighty and will prevail." 

V. NORTHERN WOMEN APOLOGIZE FOR THE SIN OF 
SLAVERY. . ' 

Many have -no correct views of the height and depth,- 
the length and breadth, and. innumerable horrors of this 
enormous system of crime. They too easily allow them- 
selves to be p.ersuaded of the mildness of American sla- 
very) by those who go to the South, not to search out- the 
hidden works of darkness, not to visit the sighing captive 
in the- house of his bondage ; but to make their fortunes, 
and to sit in the drawing-rooms of the rich and the great.- 
Such see no more of the internal machinery of slavery, 
than the man who goes to the theatre and sits in the pit or 
the boxes sees of what passes behind the curtain. Some 
of us. have been behind the scenes of the South, and we 
feel it to be an imperative duty to assure you that slavery . 
is. a whited sepulchre, which, however fair and" beautiful 
it may outwardly appear, is nevertheless "full of .dead 
men's bones and ail uncleajiness." We entreat you, 
therefore, no longer to apologize for slavery, for we feel 
assured that in so doing you are helping to deceive the 
North as to the real state of things in the slave States, 
and io paralyze her moral energies — -to rivet the chains 
of the colored man, and to blind the eyes and steel the 
heart of the master. to his highest interests arid monstrous 
obligations.. • # 



APPEAL. 



29 



VI. NORTHERN WOMEN HAVE DEEP-ROOTED PREJUDICES 
AGAINST OUR COLORED BRETHREN AND SISTERS. 

They gravely talk of their intellectual inferiority and 
their physical organization, as sufficient reasons why 
they never should be permitted to rise to an equality w ith 
the whites in this country, forgetting that they have not 
yet proved the position assumed with regard to mental 
inferiority. This we utterly deny, and appeal to history 
and facts to show that the colored is equal in capacity to 
the white man. 

Intellect of the colored man. — The honorable Alexander 
H. Everett, in a speech delivered in Boston about ten 
years ago, says, " Trace this very civilization of which 
we are so proud to its origin, and see where you will find 
it. We received it from our European ancestors — they 
had it from the Greeks and Romans, and the Jews. But 
where did the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Jews 
get it ? They derived it from Ethiopia and Egypt — in 
one word, from Africa. Moses, we are told, was in- 
structed in all the learning of the Egyptians. The 
founders of the principal Grecian cities, such as Athens, 
Thebes and Delphi, came from Egypt, and for centuries 
afterwards their descendants returned to that country, as 
the source and centre of civilization. There it was that 
the generous and stirring spirits of the time — Herodotus, 
Homer, Plato, Pythagoras, and the rest — made their 
noble voyages of intellectual and moral discovery, as 
ours now make them in England, France, Germany and 

Italy Well, sir, who were the Egyptians ? They 

were Africans. And of what race ? It is sometimes 
pretended that, though Africans and of Ethiopian ex- 
traction, they were not black. But what says the father 
of history, who had travelled among them, and knew their 
appearance as well as we know that of our neighbors in 
Canada ? Herodotus tells us they were black with 

curled hair It seems, therefore, that for this very 

civilization of which we are so proud, and which is the 
only ground of our present claim of superiority, we are 
indebted to the ancestors of these very blacks, whom we 
are pleased to consider as naturally incapable of civiliza- 
tion. And it is worth while Mr. President, to remark, 
3* 



30 



APPEAL. 



that the prejudice which is commonly entertained in this 
country, and which does not exist to anything like the 
same extent in Europe, against the color of the blacks, 
seems to have grown out of the unnatural position which 
they occupy among us. At the period to which I have 
just alluded, when the blacks took precedence cf the whites 
in civilization, science and political power, no such pre- i 
judice appears to have existed." 

In this extract from Alexander H. Everett, the most un- 
exceptionable evidence seems to be afforded as to the intei* 
lectual capacity of the colored man. And in speaking of 
the doctrine of his mental imbecility, he says, " I reject 
with contempt nod indignation this miserable heresy." 
Dr. J. Mason Good also spurns the idea of his inferiority, ; 
and thinks tr that' of all the arguments which have ever 
been offered to support the doctrine of different species, 
this is ihefevblcst and most superficial." "It may," says he, 
" suit the narrow purposes of a slave merchant — of a traf- 
ficker in human nerves and muscles ; it may suit their 
purpose to introduce such a distinction into their creed 
and to let it constitute the whole of their creed ; but it is 
a distinction too trifling and evanescent to claim the no- 
tice of a physiologist for a moment." 

Blumenbach, of Germany, had a private library com- 
posed entirely of works written by colored men ; but it I 
has been the policy of Americans to exclude such books f. 
from our public and private collections of taste and talent 

— at least, so far as we have oeen able to ascertain. 

In a sermon preached about thirty years since by Dr. 
Griffin, late-President of Williams College, in which he 
endeavors to refute the false and malicious assertions rela- 
tive to the inferiority of the colored man, he says, "Pass- 
ing by many ancient Ethiopians, to whom 1 have only 
seen a reference, and some instances of-energy and prow- 
ess in the field, I have arranged the names of more- than 
fifty negroes and mulattoes which are worthy to be pre- 
served from oblivion. Among these, I could show you r. 
handsome portrait painter* — a distinguished physician"' 

— skillful navigators! — and useful ministers of religion. t< 



* Cugoano, once a slave. 1 James Djurbam, also ai one time a slave. 

CufFee and G. Vassa. § Capatein and others. 



V 



APPEAL. . 31 

I could show you those who could repeat from memory 
the Koran,* an.d those who without rules and figures could 
perform the most difficult calculations with the rapidity of 
thought.j I could show you those who are skilled in 
Latin, Greek and Hebrew; and an instance or two, I 
might add, of Arabic and Chaldaic.- I could show you 
teachers of the Latin language, a teacher of mathemat- 
ics,! and a publisher of almanacs.^ I could show you 
poets — authors of letters, || histories, memoirs, — es- 
says,** petitions to legislative bodies, f| and Latin verses 
and dissertations. 1 could. show you a man "of great 
wisdom and profound knowledge, several who were truly 
learned, and one who gave private lectures on philosophy 
at a university. I could show you members of the uni- 
versities of Cambridge, Leyden and Wittemburg. 1 
could show you one who. took the degree of doctor of 
philosophy, and was raised to the chair of a. professor in 
one of the first universities of Europe ; -another who was 
corresponding member of the French Academy ;|||| and a 
third who was an associate of the National Institute of 
France. I could show you . one who for many ages has 
been surnamed in Arabia; the Wise, and whose authority 
Mahomet himself frequently appealed to in the Koran, 
in support of his own opinion. I could show you men 
of wealth and active benevolence : here a sable Howard 
spending his life in visiting prisons, to relieve and reclaim 
the wretched tenants, and consecrating all his property to 
charitable uses jOT' there another founding a hospital for 
poor negroes and mulattoes, and devoting his life and for- 
tune, to their comfort for more than forty years.*** In 
another, place, a third, making distant and ex-pensive voy- 
ages to promote the improvement of his brethren and the 
colonization of Africa. Il'f-" 

We hope,- dear sisters, that we shall be excused for 
dwelling so long oh the intellectual capacity of the col- 
ored man : we have done so, because we believe it is of 
vital importance to his interest, that the ungenerous and 

- * Stodman mentions one. | Thomas Fuller and others. 1 Francis Williams. 

•$ Banimkfcv,.-a slave. || Sancbo. IT Vassa.— — ** Othello ft Sanchp. 

XX Capitein and Williams. Anthony William Amo. L. Islet Geoffrey. 

TnT Joseph Kachel *** Jazmi'n Thoma'zrau. fit -Paul Cuffee. 



32 



APPEAL. 



unfounded aspersions of his enemies should be completely 
refuted, in order that all pretexts for treating him as an 
inferior should be entirely destroyed. We must remem- 
ber, that if in this country he has not risen to an equality 
with the whites, it is solely because he has not had the 
same advantages. In schools for colored children, we 
have witnessed the same ability and anxiety to learn ; and 
our experience is not only corroborated by the testimony 
of many living teachers, but by that of Anthony Benezet, 
who had the honor of being the first individual in America 
who opened a school for colored children. He says, " I 
can with truth declare, that among my negro scholars I 
have found as great a variety of talent as among the like 
number of whites ;" and then proeeeds to assign the rea- 
son why we regard them as our inferiors : " and 1 am bold 
to assert, that the notion of their inferiority is a vulgar 
prejudice, founded on the pride of those who keep them 
at so great a distance as to be unable to form a right judg- 
ment of them." 

We are, however, often told that those colored men 
who have excelled in intellect, are not black, and that 
their superiority arises from a mixture with the white 
race. The testimony of the Abbe Gregoire, who wrote 
a book on the intellect of negroes, is directly contrary to 
this opinion ; he says, " the number of negro writers is 
greater than that of mulattoes." And Wadstrom, who 
travelled extensively in Africa, thought the blacks supe- 
rior to the whites, for says he, "the intellect of Africans 
is so far from being of an inferior order, that one finds it 
difficult to account for their acuteness which so far tran- 
scends their means of improvement."* 

But what further evidence of the intellectual capacities 
of colored men do we need, than the attainments of those 
who are now living in our free States, and occupying the 
station of ministers of the gospel. Let any one who counts 
them inferior, only go and hear a Cornish, a Raymond, a 
Wright and a Williams, of New- York ; a Charleton, of 
Virginia; a Meacham, of St. Louis; a Graham, of Nash- 
ville ; a Small, of Boston, or a Gardner and a Douglass, 



* This testimony is very valuable, because he had previously kept a school fl»r 
whites. 



APPEAL." 



33 



of Philadelphia, and we. 'feel assured he will be ashamed 
of ever- having entertained, an opinion so- unjust' to" them, 
and so derogatory to his own heart and head. We can- 
not appeal to the abilities of our colored brethren here 
as lawyers, physicians and statesmen, but why ? It is 
'mi because 1. key could not fill such stations among" us, had 
they the same advantages which w-hite men enjoy,' but 
simply because American prejudice has closed the" doors 
of our literary institutions against them,, and pertina- 
ciously refused to grant them the privilege of drinking 
freely from that river of knowledge, which flows so abun- 
dantly throughout our .borders. But we can point you to 
the West-India islands, first -to.Iiayti, whose government 
was organized by colored, men, among whom Touissant 
Li'Ouverture" shines pre-eminent as a statesman, as well 
as a warrior, and which has been for more than 30 years 
entirely under their control. We will next point you to 
the island of St. 'Thomas, a Danish island, where slavery 
still, exists, and yet the aid-de-camp of the governor-gen- 
eral of all the Danish West-Indies, is a colored man, 
who it is supposed is the wealthiest man in the island," 
being worth a million, which vast sum he made by mer- 
chandize. In the island of St. Christopher, the propor- 
tion of colored- - members in the Assembly is increasing 
every year ; it is supposed that at least one eighth of the 
present Assembly are colored men. Several of the spe- 
cial magistrates are colored men. The editor of the " St. 
Christopher. Weekly Intelligencer and Advertiser," is a 
colored man, who has been a bold advocate of liberal 
principles. He .is described as a thorn in the side of the 
planters, and a great blessing to the . island. In the 
island of Dominica, four or five of the members of the 
Assembly are colored men. In Antigua there is now a 
colored methodis.t minister, who is represented by a 
planter -who is well acquainted with the clergymen of the 
island., as the most clear and logical reasoner and fin- 
ished writer among them. J n Jamaica, out of five rep- 
resentatives from the town of Kingston., four of them are 
colored ; "and a colored "lawyer lately died- in this island, 
who was acknowledged to be an ornament to his- profes- 
sion. .Many other instances of talent and .worth and 



34 



APPEAL 



wealth might be adduced; but it seems impossible after 
all which has been said, any doubt can remain on your 
minds as to the equality of the colored with the white 
man. To the above instances we would add that of James j 
McCune Smith, who after being cast out of the semina- 
ries of learning in this Republican Despotism, was re- 
ceived into the University of Glasgow, where he has re- 
cently graduated and taken the highest honor, though he 
competed with hundreds of white men. 

Now, beloved sisters, what do you say to these proofs 
of the intellectual abilities of our colored brethren ? Can 
you rejoice to find that you were mistaken in your opinion 
of their inferiority ? Are you ready to extend to them 
the hand of a sister, to welcome them upon that platform 
of equal rights, social, civil and religious, on which they 
are as much entitled to stand erect as any white man in 
our land ? 

Physical Organization. But we will now endeavor to 
answer the second objection urged against the colored 
man's equality, which is his physical organization. He 
has a black, or it may be a yellow skin. From these 
peculiarities, it is argued that he belongs to a different 
race. This we confess we cannot understand, if the 
Bible account of man's creation is authentic ; for there 
we are told that Eve was the "mother of all living." 
There can therefore be but one race of human beings, as 
they have all sprung from one common parentage. This 
holy book speaks of different nations, people, kindreds, 
and tongues, but tells us nothing of different races ; so 
far from it that it expressly declares " God hath made of 
one blood all the nations, to dwell on all the face of the 
earth." But there are others who gravely tell us that 
Noah was the second father of mankind, and that he had 
three sons, one of whom was white, one red, and one 
black, and that from them have descended the varieties 
of the human family. This is an assertion without proof, 
and it does appear to us to be a very absurd one, as 
learned physiologists all agree in the opinion, that differ- 1 
ence of color is produced by climate, food, &c. Buffon 1 
says that "man though white in Europe, black in Africa, 1 
yellow in Asia, and red in America, is still the same ! 



APPEAL. 



35 



animal, tinged only with the color of the climate." It 
appears self-evident then, that Noah's sons vyere of but 
one complexion, when they separated after the flood, to 
people the three then known continents, and that the 
color of their descendants has been produced by the 
difference of climate into which they emigrated. "No 
matter what the original complexion of the emigrants to 
any country may have been, it is always found to accom- 
modate itself to the hue peculiar to that country or cli- 
mate. Hence the Jews, who were doubtless originally 
all of the same complexion, and who never intermarry 
with the nations among whom they sojourn, are found to 
be white, in Germany and Poland, swarthy in Spain and 
' Portugal, olive in the Barbary states and Egypt, and 
black in Hindoostan. And hence a colony of Ethiopians, 
( who settled at Colchis on the Black Sea, 2,000 years 
ago, have now become white, and the Portuguese who 
( settled 200 years since on the coast of Africa, black." 
I "But still we shall be asked, if color be the effect of 
, climate, why the negroes born in the United States are not 
white ? We answer, that it should be remembered, ours 
I ' is not the native climate of the white man.' The copper 
i color is that which is incident to this climate, therefore it 
i would be very unnatural for the black man to turn white 
on our shores. 

i The learned professor of Gottengen remarks, that in 
i Guinea, not only men, but dogs, birds, and particularly 
the gallinaceous tribe, are black ; whilst near the frozen 
i seas, bears and other animals are white. Here it may be 
1 asked why are not men who live under the same parallels 
, of latitude in Africa and America of the same color, 
j. We reply that climate does not depend entirely upon 
I latitude, but very materially upon the face of a country 
i also. In Africa a vast extent of sandy desert stretches 
I across that continent, which renders the reflection of the 
sun's rays far more intense than it can be in America, 
where the surface is broken by mountains and hills cov- 
. ered with verdure, and diversified and cooled by lakes 
i and rivers. The products of these two countries are also 
different, and therefore the food of the inhabitants is dis- 
similar. Hence even in Africa, the inhabitants of the 



36 



APPEAL. 



mountain and the plain differ greatly in their complexions. 
•This will be fully- understood when we remember that the 
sun's rays have no heat until they have come in contact 
with the earth's , surface,, from the diversified reflecting 
power of which, our atmosphere derives its comparative 
degrees of heat.-. : . •• . . ' • - 

• The simple reason which the Bible assigns for the 
color of black in the human species is'truly philosophical. 
".Look hot upon me," said the bride in Canticles, " be- 
cause I am black, for the sun hath looked upon me." 
Her blackness was occasioned by the intense heat of a 
tropical sun, and so is the African's. 

If then the black skin is not the mark of a distinct race, 
but merely the peculiarity incident to climate and food, 
what shall we say about it — how shall we regard it ? 
As an insuperable barrier between our colored brethren 
and sisters and ourselves — as a sufficient reason for 
their being deprived of valuable privileges and social en- 
joyments among us — ror a trivial distinction, -as unworthy 
of Our notice as the difference of color in the hair and 
th.e^eyes of our fairer companions and friends ? Is it not 
wonderful and humiliating to us as Republicans and Chris- 
tians, that we should ever have, made the sinful distinc- 
tions and silly assertions which we have, because some 
of our fellow-creatures wear a skin not colored like our 
own ? Let the time past then suffice, and let us now re- 
solve to do all we can in vindicating the character of our 
colored brethren from the- unjust aspersions which the 
world and the church have united in heaping upon them. 
Women ought to feel a peculiar sympathy in the colored 
man's wrongs, for, like him, she has been accused of men- 
tal inferiority, and denied the "privileges of a liberal edu- 
cation. • - h " : ./• ■ -r^y- -^z^ yMwiiw 

VII. NORTHERN WOMEN ARE LENTING TIIEIR AID TO 
THE COLONISATION SOCIETY. 

If the advocates of this scheme would only call it by 
its true name,' the Expatriation Society, we would be 
spared the trouble of entering into an explanation of v its 
character and objects. But the very fact of its having 
been clothed with the mantle of benevolence, is a power- 



APPEAL. 



3T 



ful reason why we should attempt to exhibit it, just in 
that light which its own friends and advocates have thrown 
upon it, in their public speeches and its official docu- 
ments. 

Before enumerating our reasons for condemning the 
principles of this society, we will give some little account 
of its origin. As early as the year 1777, Jefferson form- 
ed a plan for colonizing the free colored population of the 
United States, on some of the western vacant lands ; but 
it proved a failure. In 1787, Dr. Thornton, of Washing- 
ton, formed another scheme to effect the same purpose 
on the western coast of Africa, and published an address 
to the colored people residing in Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island, inviting them to accompany him. A sufficient 
number agreed to go, and were prepared for the expedi- 
tion; but this project likewise failed for want of funds. 
About the year 1800 or 1801, soon after the insurrection 
of Gabriel, at Richmond, Virginia, the impulse of fear 
prompted another effort to throw from our snores the free 
people of color, and any slaves who might be Suspected 
of insurrectionary intentions. The Legislature of Vir- 
ginia, in secret session, instructed Mr. Monroe, then 
Governor of the State, to apply to the President of the 
United States, and urge him to institute negociations with 
some of the powers of Europe, possessed of colonies on 
the coast of Africa, to grant an asylum, to which our 
emancipated negroes might be sent. Mr. Jefferson open- 
ed a negociation with the Sierra Leone Company, for 
that purpose, but without success. He subsequently ap- 
plied to the Government of Portugal, but failed. The 
project was then abandoned, as hopeless. In the Legis- 
lature of Virginia of 1816, the subject was again brought 
forward, and the following resolution was adopted by a 
large majority: "Resolved, that the Executive be re- 
quested to correspond with the President of the United 
States, for the purpose of obtaining a territory on the 
coast of Africa, or at some other place, not within any 
of the States or territorial governments of the United 
States, to serve as an asylum for such persons of color 
as arc now free, and may desire the same, and for those 
who may hereafter be emancipated within the common- 
4 



33 



APPEAL. 



wealth, and that the senators aud representatives of tin's 
State in the Congress of the United States, be requested 
to exert their best efforts to aid the President of the Uni- 
ted States in the attainment of the above object." 

This resolution was passed in the Virginia House of 
Delegates, some, time before the formation in the city of 
Washington of the American Colonization Society. The 
origin of this society is thus spoken of in a memorial pre- 
sented by the managers of the Colonization Society to 
Congress in 1817 : " The design of this institution, the 
committee are apprized, originated in the disclosure of the 
secret resolutions of prior legislatures of that State ; to 
which may a'lso be ascribed, it is understood, the renewal 
of their obvious purpose in the resolution subjoined to 
this report — .a resolution which was first adopted by the 
House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 14th December 
1816, with an unanimity which denoted the deep interest 
that it inspired, and which openly manifested to the world 
a steady adherence to the humane policy which had se- 
cretly animated the same councils at a much earlier period. 
This brief, but correct history of the origin of the Amer- 
ican Colonization Society, evinces that it sprang from a 
deep solicitude for Southern interest, and among those 
most competent to discern and promote them," i. e. among 
slaveholders. The African Repository informs us, that at 
its formation, every one who spoke was a slaveholder. 
In an address of the Rockbridge (Virginia) Colonization 
Society, published in Vol. IV. p. 274, we find this asser- 
tion: " About twelve years ago, some of the wisest men 
in the nation, mostly slaveholders, formed in the city of 
Washington the present American Colonization Society." 
Its first president, Bu'shrod Washington, was a slaveholder 
all his life, and during his continuance in office .sold fifty- 
four human beings, who were driven off in chains to 
Louisiana. 

From that time to the present, it has been principally 
managed by slaveholders. We make this assertion on 
the authority of the African Repository, the official organ 
of the Colonization Society ; which, in speaking of the 
members of the society, repeatedly asserts that they are 
" mostly slaveholders " — (( chiefly slaveholders " — " by 



APPEAL. 



39 



far "the* larger part citizens'.of slaveholding States;" and 
that " from the first it obtained its most decided' and effi- 
cient support from the slaveholding States."" Charles, 
Carroll, its second president, who signed the declaration 
that all men are created free and equal, died owning near 
one thousand slaves. Its-third president, James M ao ison , 
also died a slaveholder ; and its fourth president, Henry 
Clay, is now a slaveholder. This society, then, origi- 
nated in the Ancient Dominion, in the midst of slavery; 
and its members and publications have again and again 
urged the fact of their' being slaveholders as an incontro- 
jvertible evidence of their peculiar fitness to' manage its 
•concerns, and their claims to Southern confidence and 
Southern aid. Thus., in the African Repository, Vol. Til. 
p. 100, we find the following: "Being mostly slaveholders 
ourselves having a common interest ivith you on this subject, 
an equal opportunity of understanding It, and the same 
motives to prudent action, what better guaranty can be 
afforded for the just discrimination and the safe operation 
of our measures." The league, then, which has been 
formed between the colonizationist and the slaveholder 
seems to us to be as close as that which existed between 
Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, when the latter said unto the 
former, " I am as -thou art, my people as thy people, my 
horses as thy horses." Read now our objections, and 
judge for yourselves whether this assertion be not true. 
We condemn it — 

I. Because it surrenders the great principle, that man 
cannot justly hold man as property, and regards the wrest- 
ing of the slaves from their masters as great an outrage 
as the invasion of their right of property in houses, cattle, 
and land. To substantiate this charge, we quote from the 
African Repository, Vol. I. p. 283: "We hold their slaves 
as we hold their 'Other property sacred." In Vol. II. p. 13, 
we find these words: "Does this society wish to meddle 
with our slaves as our rightful property? I answer, no — 
1 think not." And in a speech delivered by Henry Clay 
he said, " It was proper again and again to repeat, that it 
was far from the intention of the society to affect in any 
manner the tenure by which a certain species i of property 
is held" He. was himself a slaveholder ; and he consid-- 



40 



APPEAL, 



ered thai hind of property as inviolable as any oiher in the 

country. 

II. Because it not. only is not hostile to slavery, but in 
its reports and in its official organ, and by its auxiliary 
societies and principal supporters, exonerates slaveholders 
from guilt, and represents their criminality as their misfor- 
tune. In the seventh vol. of the African Repository, are 
these declarations: "It (the society) condemns no man 
because he is a slaveholder" — p. 200. "They (the aboli- 
tionists) confound the misfortunes of one generation with 
the crimes of another, and would sacrifice both individual 
and public good to an unsubstantial theory of the rights of 
man " — p. 202. From the Second Annual Report of the 
New- York State Colonization Society, we extract the fol- 
lowing exculpation of slaveholders: "The existence of 
slavery among us, though not at all to be objected to our 
Southern brethren as a fault, is yet a blot on our national 
character," &c. 

III. Because it openly, actively, uncompromisingly de- 
nounced the immediate abolition of slavery as injustice to> 
the masters, a calamity to the slaves, dangerous to society, 
and contrary to the requirements of Christianity. We 
prove this assertion by an extract from the First Annual 
Report of the New-Jersey Colonization Society : " The 
inhabitants of the South cannot and ought not suddenly to 
emancipate their slaves to remain among them free. Such 
a measure would be no blessing to the slaves, but the very 
madness of self-destruction to the whites." In Vol. III. 
of the African Repository, p. 97, are these words : "The 
scope of the society is large enough, but it is in no wise 
mingled and confounded with the broad sweeping views 
of a few fanatics in America, who would urge us on to 
the total abolition of slavery." 

IV. Because it formally lays down the doctrine that it 
is not incumbent on all oppressors to do justly and love 
mercy now, and that it is proper to cease from robbery and 
sin by a slow process. In Vol. V. of the-African Reposi- , 
tory, is this sentiment, p. 329 : " Were the very spirit of 
angelic charity to pervade and fill the hearts of all the j 
slaveholders in our land, it would by no means require that j 
all the slaves should be instantaneously liberated." 



APPEAL. 



41 



- V, Because it confesses that its measures are calcu- 
lated to secure the slave-system from destruction — to re- 
move the apprehensions of slaveholders — to increase the 
value of slave property — and thus to perpetuate the thral- 
dom of native Americans. John Randolph, in a speech 
delivered at the first meeting of the Colonization Society, 
remarked, " So far from being connected with the aboli- 
tion of slavery, the measures proposed would prove one of 
the greatest securities to enable the master to keep in posses- 
sion his own property." In the third volume of the Afri- 
can Repository, we find the following: " To remove these 
people (free colored persons.) from among us, will increase 
the usefulness and. improve the moral character of those 
who remain in servitude, and with whose labors the coun- 
try is unable to dispense. •' And in Vol. II. p. 344 : " The 

EXECUTION OF ITS SCHEME WOULD AUGMENT, INSTEAD 
OF DIMINISHING, THE VALUE OF THE PROPERTY LEFT 
BEHIND." • ' • • ■ 

VI. Because it positively denies that it has any refer- 
ence to the work of emancipation. In a speech of James 
S. Green, published with the First Annual Report of the 
New-Jersey Colonization Society; is this explicit avowal : 
"Our society, and the friends of colonization, wish to be 
distinctly understood upon this point. From the begin- 
ning they have disavowed, and they do yet disavow, that 
their object is the emancipation of the slaves." In the third 
Vol. of the African Repository, p. 197, this official organ 
of the society declares, "It is no abolition society : it ad- 
dresses as yet arguments to no master, and disavows with 
horror the idea of offering temptations to any slave. It 
denies the design of attempting emancipation, either partial 
or graduaL" And again : " The Colonization Society, as 
such, have renounced wholly the name and the character- 
istics of abolitionists. On this point, they have been un- 
justly and injuriously slandered. Into their account the 
subject of Emancipation does not enter at all." — p. 306. 

VII. Because it holds that slaveholders are such from 
necessity, — that the oppressive laws which are enacted 
against the free colored and slave population are justified 
by sound policy, and that it is wrong to increase the num- 
ber of the free blacks by emancipation. We quote now 

4* 



42 



APPEAL. 



from the North American Review of July, 1832 : "Thou- 
sands are connected with the system of slavery from ne- 
cessity, and not from choice. . . . The vast majority of 
those who would emancipate, we have no hesitation in 
saying* are deterred from it by a patriotism and a phi- 
lanthropy which look beyond the bound of their partic- 
ular district and beyond the ostensible quality of the 
mere abstract act." And in the Ninth Annual Report of 
the Colonization Society we find the following declaration 
with regard to the oppressive laws against the people of 
color: " Such, unhappily, is the case : but there is a ne- 
cessity for it ; and so long as they remain among us, will 
that necessity continue." 

VIII. Because it denies the power of the Gospel to over- 
come prejudice, and maintains that no moral or educa- 
tional means can ever raise the colored population from 
their degradation to respectability and usefulness in this 
country. By inculcating this monstrous doctrine, it meas- 
urably paralyzes in the breasts of those who embrace it 
all efforts to improve the character and condition of this 
depressed and injured class. The following may be found 
in the African Repository, Vol. IV. pp. 118, 119 : "In 
every part of the United States, there is a broad and im- 
passable line of demarcation between every one who has 
one drop of African blood in his veins, and every other 
class in the community. The habits, the feelings, all the 
prejudices of society — prejudices which neither refine- 
ment, nor argument, nor education, nor religion itself, 
can subdue — mark the people of color, whether bond or 
free, as the subjects of a degradation inevitable and in- 
curable. The African belongs by birth to the very lowest 
station in society ; and from that station he can never 
Rise, be his talents, his enterprise, his virtues what they 
may. . . . They constitute a class by themselves — a class 
out of which no individual can be elevated, and below which 
none can be depressed." 

IX. Because, while it professes to remove those emi- 
grants only who go " with their own consent" to Africa, it 
is the instrument of a cruel persecution against the free 
people of color, by its abuse of their character, repre- 
senting them as seditious, dangerous and useless. It 



APPEAL, 



43 



contends, moreover, that emancipation should not take 
place without the simultaneous expatriation of the liber- 
ated — thus leaving to the slave the choice of banishment 
or perpehial servitude. In the African Repository, Vol. II. 
p. 138, the following sentiment is found: "No scheme 
of abolition will meet any support that leaves the emanci- 
pated blacks among us." In Vol. III. p. 26, " We would 
say, liberate them onhj on condition of their going to Africa." 
In Vol. IV. p. 226, " J am not complaining of the owners 
of slaves : it would be as humane to throw them from the 
decks in the middle passage, as to set them free in our 
country." And on p. 300, "A scheme of emancipation 
without colonization (i. e. expatriation) they know, and see, 
and feel to be productive of nothing but evil ; evil to all 
whom it affects — to the white population, to the slaves, 
to the manumitted themselves.'". 

X. Because it is held in abhorrence by the free peo- 
ple of color, wherever they possess the liberty of speech 
and the means of intelligence, as a scheme full of evil to 
themselves and to their enslaved brethren. This may be 
amply proved, by quoting resolutions passed at hundreds 
of meetings held by them to protest against the scheme 
of expatriation many years before any Anti-Slavery soci- 
ety was ever formed in this country. We will transcribe 
but one, which we regard as a noble specimen of that true 
elevation of moral feeling to which many of our colored 
brethren have attained, notwithstanding the withering, 
crushing influence of prejudice in this land : f< Resolved, 
That we never will separate ourselves voluntarily from the 
slave population in this country : they are our brethren by 
the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrong; and 
we feel that there is more virtue in suffering privations 
with them, than fancied advantages for a season." 

XI. Our last objection is founded on the fact, that this 
society, although it professes to be the greatest friend of 
the colored people, is exerting no influence to produce a 
correct public sentiment with regard to their rights in this 
the land of their birth. Far otherwise ; their love is a 
love to get rid of them — a love to keep them low in the 
dust under the feet of oppression and the scowl of con- 
tempt and the ban of a separate and inferior caste, as long 



44 



APPEAL. 



as they remain in their own native America, Of the prin- 
ciples of Colonization, then, we fully and freely express 
our entire disapprobation. We believe them to be utterly 
unchrist ian — calculated alike to foster the feelings of pride 
and prejudice in the aristocracy of the North, and the 
unjust, unreasonable oppression of our colored brethren 
and sisters — and to blind the eyes, sear the conscience, 
and steel the heart of the slaveholder at the South. 

The effect which this scheme is to produce upon Africa 
is quite another thing : were that influence ever so favor- 
able, our opinion of its principles and its tendency to 
strengthen the unholy feeling of prejudice in the United 
States must remain the same. An immense amount of 
evil has been done here : our colored brethren have en- 
treated and protested in vain — they have lifted up their 
voices in vain, and besought Colonizationists to spare 
them the abuse which they have heaped upon their de- 
fenceless heads — to roll back from off their prostrate 
bodies and minds the ponderous wheels of that American 
Juggernaut, Prejudice, which their hands have dragged 
over them *by incessantly preaching up the doctrine that 
" they never can rise" in this country, and that even reli- 
gion ilsetf cannot subdue in the hearts of Americans that 
hatred of the colored man which now fills their bosoms. 

We consider it our duty, then, solemnly to protest 
against the influence of colonization principles on the free 
and the bond in our land, and to urge our sisters to exam- 
ine them for themselves, and to judge for themselves 
whether they are not evil, unsound, and unsustainable on 
the broad basis of human rights and Christian love. To 
those who justify this scheme on the ground of its evan- 
gelizing Africa, Ave would point to this emphatic, tremen- 
dous declaration of the Apostle Paul when vindicating the 
purity of Christian principles from the false accusations of 
his enemies, some of whom affirmed that the apostles 
said, " let us do evil that good may come, ivhose condemna- 
tion is just." 

We would, then, turn to the effects which colonization 
has already produced on Africa. Its deleterious influence 
on that devoted country had become so manifest to the 
English philanthropists that Dr. Philip was recalled from 



APPEAL. 



45 



South Africa, that he might lay before the British public 
the working of this system on the natives. From a speech 
delivered by him in Exeter Hall, we copy the following: 
" The system has been put into operation and supported 
by the nations of Europe, to the manifest injurtj of the na- 
tives of America, Africa, and other parts of the world." 
After noticing some of these, the Doctor preceeded, "In 
the beginning of the last century the European colony in 
Africa was confined to within a few miles of Cape Town. 
From that period it has advanced till it now includes 
many more square miles than are to be found in England, 
Scotland and Ireland. (If a traveller who had visited 
that country twenty-five years ago, were to take his stand 
on the banks of the Koiskama river, and ask what had 
become of the natives whom he saw there on his former 
visit ; if he took his stand on the banks of the Sunday 
river, and looked forward to a country seventy miles in 
breadth before him, he might ask the same question ; if 
he were to take his stand again on the Fish river, and 
there extend his views to Caffraria, he might ask the same 
question ; and were he to take his stand upon the snow 
mountains called Craaff Reinet, (he would have before 
him a country containing 40,000 square miles,) — and ask 
where was the immense concourse that he saw there 
twenty-five years ago, no man could tell him where they 
were.''') 

In Zion's Watchman, we find the succeeding remarks 
on this extract, and as they contain our own views and 
give some interesting facts relative to Liberia, which are 
not generally known, we have inserted them without any 
alteration. 

" A fine illustration this, of the benefits of colonization 
to the natives of any country ? It shows that colonization 
is only another name for extermination. As long as hu- 
man wickedness is what it is, such will ever be the result. 
Such it ever has been. 'You can't civilize the Hottentots, 1 
was the doctrine of South Africa. 'An Indian will be an 
Indian — you can't civilize him,' was the doctrine in the 
United States ; and accordingly the natives have melted 
away and been destroyed in both cases, just in proportion 
as the tide of colonization has moved onward. Such 3 



46 



APPEAL. 



too, thus far, has been, as a matter-of-fact/ the result at 
Liberia. To this moment there has been no amalgama- 
tion of the natives and colonists. On the contrary, the 
same line of distinction and the same separate interests 
and mutual jealousies exist there as have existed in other 
cases. The colonists are called by the natives, ' 'Meri- 
cans,' their customs, * 'Merica man's fash.' Governor 
Pinney himself, (see letter some three years since,) de- 
clared that * the natives are, as to wealth and intellectual 
cultivation, related to the colonists as the negro in Amer- 
ica is to the white man — and this fact, added to their 
mode of dress, leads to the same distinction as exists in 
America between colors,' so that ' a colonist of any dye, 
(and many Southern are of a darker hue than % the Vey, 
or Dey, or Croo, or Bassoo,) would, if at all respectable, 
think himself degraded by marrying a native ; the mis- 
sionaries of the American Board, Wilson and Wynkoop, 
(Missionary Herald, June, 1834,) select the site for the 
* mission settlement' half a mile from the colonial settle- 
ment ; f and then,' say they, 'we took all the pains we 
could to impress the mind of the king and his people with 
the fact, that the mission is to be entirely distinct from 
the colony, and will be identified. with the interests of 
the natives,' as if it were vain to secure their confidence, 
so strong their jealousies and so separate their interests 
from those of the colonists, except by taking sides with 
them ; and finally, in August, 1835, (note African Re- 
pository, May, 1836,) we find the citizens of Monrovia 
enacting as a law, ' that all Kroomen residing at Kroo- 
town, on that side of the Mesurado river, shall pay ann.ir- 
ally to the town of Monrovia the sum of one dollar and 
fifty cents, and do any kind of fatigue duty required by 
the president of the town council ; and further, that all 
Kroomen coming there to reside ' shall report themselves 
within five days to the president of the town council, -and 
receive a certificate granting them permission to reside 
(not in Monrovia but even) in Krootown — for which they 
shall pay the sum of one dollar and fifty cents ; and. all 
neglecting to comply with this resolution shall, on con- 
viction, pay the sum of two dollars, and leave the settle- 
ment ; and in case of failure to pay the fine, shall be 



APPEAL. 



47 



compelled to- do public labor until the fine is satisfied ;' 
and not these only, but ' that all other natives, not in the 
employment of the colonists of the town, shall when called 
upon by proper authority, do fatigue duty of ANY NA- 
TURE that may be assigned them ;' thus, instead of 
amalgamating them with the colony, they are branding 
them as a suspected and servile class, and giving their 
president the semi-power of a slaveholder. 
| " Now, be it remembered, (see Phillip's South Africa,) 
that all this is the very kind of encroachment which 
marked the early history of colonization in South Africa, 
i A more perfect counterpart could not be found. But with 
such a beginning, and proceeding as it did from bad to 
worse, why was it that colonization there did not long 
ago result in the utter extermination of the natives? Sim- 
. ply and only because that colony was under the control of 
a home government, and was to some extent restricted in 
its powers of mischief. With no restriction whatever, 
, then, of this kind, what will — nay, what must be, the end 
: of such a beginning in Liberia ? Evil, and evil only, and 
i evil continually; and if the gospel makes progress among 
i the natives, it will be only by the instrumentality of those 
| who keep 1 entirely distinct from the colony, and identi- 
fied with the interests of the natives,' and who do what 
; they do, not by the help, but in spite of the influence of 
i the colony. Such has been the case in South Africa — 
. and such, as the facts already show, must be the case in 
I Liberia." 

If, then, colonization has already proved such a curse 
to Africa, and if Liberia is treading in the footsteps of the 
colonies which preceded her ; if the missionary is indeed 
compelled to plant the standard of the cross beyond the 

| limits of Cape Palmas, and to disavow all connection with 
it ; ho^v can we possibly flatter ourselves any longer with 

[ the delusive hope that the land of Ham will be evangel- 

! ized by colonization, particularly when we remember that 
according to the declaration of colonizationists, these very 
colonists are " a nuisance from which it were a blessing 

, to be free," <£ the subjects of a degradation inevitable and 
incurable." 

But here we shall be met with the assertion, that these 



43 



APPEAL. 



colonies will put an end to the slave trade. What have they 
done towards the attainment of this object ? We here copy 
from the most favorable account which we have seen of 
the state of the colonies, contained in an official commu- 
nication to the Secretary of (he Navy from Capt. Joseph 
J. Nicholson, of the Navy, dated January 8th, 1837. 
" The slave-trade within the last three years has seriously 
injured the colony. Not only has it diverted the industry 
of the natives, but it has effectually cut off the communi- 
cation with the interior. Within a year four slave 

FACTORIES HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED ALMOST WITHIN SIGHT 

of the colony." — [Bassa Cove.] 

" And what assurance have we that the colony itself 
when grown up and independent will not follow the exam 
pie of Christian Maryland, and the Christian capital of 
our own Christian land, and set up a trade in the bodies 
and souls of its own citizens or in the " menials " that it 
may buy of the heathen ? In doing so, it would only 
imitate the example of the honorable Bushrod Washing- 
ton, the first president of the Colonization Society, who 
sold a large number of slaves into the hopeless bondage 
of the South." We doubt not that such will actually be 
the case in Liberia, unless a correct public sentiment is 
created by anti-slavery efforts and anti-slavery principles, 
which will throw a healthful influence over the colony 
before it becomes strong enough to govern itself. Colo- 
nization principles could not certainly pacify public 
opinion there any more than it has done it here ; and if 
slavery is a necessary evil in America, why may it not be 
a necessary evil in Africa ? If the society condemns no 
man for being a slaveholder here, how could it possibly 
condemn any of the colonists for holding slaves there ? 
The holy principles of truth change not with climate nor| 
with color nor with circumstance, but are, like their great 
Author, the same yesterday, to-day and forever ; the same 
on the hill-tops and green valleys of America, and the 
sickly shores and sandy deserts of Africa. O! then our 
sisters, for the sake of the slave, whose condition as prop- 
erty is rendered more secure by colonization, according to 
the showing of the society itself ; for the sake of the free 
people of color, whose hopes of usefulness and respecta- 



APPEAL. 



49 



bility in their own native land, are completely blasted by 
the vituperation and slanders which are heaped upon them 
by its advocates ; for the sake of the manumitted slave, to 
whom is offered the sad alternative of exile or bondage, 
and for the sake of our white brethren and sisters in 
whose hearts the weed of prejudice grows with frightful 
luxuriance, nursed by the transplanting hand of coloniza- 
tion — O! for the sake of the bond and the free, the colored 
and the white, we beseech you to pause and reflect, and 
pray over this subject, before you any longer throw your 
influence into the scale of unholy prejudice and cruel ex- 
patriation, rather than into that of human rights and Chris- 
1 tian philanthropy. We pray you give no Countenance to 
a society which seeks to banish our free colored citizens 
' from their own country. Do not admit for a moment that 
1 they have " no right to live in the white man's home- 
J stead," as colonizationists have denominated the United 
1 States. But on the contrary, let us openly and constantly 
plead their cause, assert their rights as Americans, and do 
c all that we can to produce that correct public sentiment 
5 which will throw open our literary institutions to them, 

5 and that spirit of true repentance which will induce us as 
8 a nation to nurse and cherish in the bosom of fraternal 
• love these trembling injured outcasts of society. Let us 
( protest against that cruelty which would cast our brethren 

on the barbarous and sickly shores of Africa, and that 
J strange philanthropy which, while it builds a college in 

Liberia, refuses to grant to the colored man in this coun- 
3 try the privileges of a liberal education. Let us then 

6 endeavor to hasten the time when " for their shame they 
) shall have double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in 

their portion." 

)l VIII. THE COLORED WOMEN OF THE NORTH ARE OP- 
j PRESSED. 

5 The eighth reason we would urge for the interference 
1 of northern women with the system of slavery is, that in 
■' consequence of the odium which the degradation of sla- 
very has attached to color even in the free States, our col- 
3 ored sisters are dreadfully oppressed here.- Our semina- 



50 



APPEAL. 



ries of learning are closed to them,* they are almost 
entirely banished from our lecture rooms, and even in the 
house of God they are separated from their white breth- 
ren and sisters as though we were afraid to come in con- 
tact with a colored skin. Listen now to the sad experi- 
ence of one of these oppressed and injured ones. We 
quote from a letter recently received from a colored young 
woman of a neighboring city. " For the last three years 
of my life, I can truly say, my soul has hungered and 
thirsted after knowledge, and I have looked to the right 
hand and to the left, but there was none to give me food. 
Prejudice has strictly guarded every avenue to science 
and cruelly repulsed all my efforts to gain admittance to 
her presence." Hear, too, her description of her feelings 
in attending a place of worship in this city. M I have 
been to meeting to-day, and can say of a truth, it was 
good to be there, for the Master of assemblies was present 
and the broad wing of his love rested on us as a canopy. 
Notwithstanding I am so often blessed in going to meeting, 
I find it a grievous cross. My heart sinks within me at 
times when I look round me and do not see one familiar 
face, and feel that I am despised for mij complexion and 
perhaps considered as an intruder." 

Here, then, are some of the bitter fruits of that invete- 
rate prejudice which the vast proportion of northern wo- 
men are cherishing towards their colored sisters; and let 
us remember that every one of us who denies the sinful- 
ness of this prejudice, under the false pretext of its being 
" an ordination of Providence" "no more to be changed 
than the laws of nature," and fixed beyond the control of 
any human power ; yea, a feeling which " religion itself 
cannot subdue ;" every one of us who make these coloniza- 
tion excuses for hugging to our bosoms the viper which 
strikes such deadly stings into the very hearts of our op- 
pressed sisters, is awfully guilty in the sight of Him who 

* To the honor of Oberlin Institution, we would say that it is a noble exception to 
the ban of proscription which denies to our sisters the privilege of obtaining a liberal 
education in our high schools. It stands^erect in our land like a pillar'of marble 
bearing on its capital these words, ' Of all monopolies a monopoly of knowledge 13 
the worst. Let it be as active as the ocean, as free as the wind, as universal as the 
sunbeams." It is a city set upon a hill in the midst of this ' hypocritical nation." 
A light revealing that prejudice which hangs like a dark cloud over the literarv insti- 
tutions of the lt Freest Government in the world." 



APPEAL. 



51 



is no respecter of persons. If it be a sin to despise the 
man clothed in vile raiment, and to say to such an one 
'-* stand thou there or sit here under my footstool," how 
much greater must be the crime of despising our sister 
because God has clothed Iter in a darker skin than our 
own. How solemn the reflection, that " Whoso oppress- 
eth the poor reproacheth his Maker." Yes, our sisters, 
little as we may be willing to admit it, yet it is assuredly 
true, that whenever we treat a colored brother or sister 
in a way different from that in which we would treat them 
were they white, we do virtually reproach our Maker for 
having dyed their skins of a sable hue. 

IX. TRUE CAUSE OF THE INCREASE OF PREJUDICE. 

It is said that this prejudice has increased to a dreadful 
extent since Anti-Slavery Societies were formed in our 
country, and we are often told that upon us must rest all 
the blame. Now we contend that the victims of this pre- 
judice are the very best judges of this matter, and we ap- 
peal to the sister from whose letters we have already 
quoted, to know what are the views of the colored people 
with regard to it. In another letter she says, " They 
know the American Colonization Society to be their most 
potent enemy at home, they feel its iron grasp upon their 
necks, pressing them to the very dust, and behold with 
horror and dismay that prejudice grows more fierce and 
bitter wherever its influence is felt." And again, in a letter 
of a still more recent date : " I solemnly believe that the 
American Colonization Society is the most cruel and po- 
tent enemy of the free people of color, that it seeks to 
rivet faster the fetters of the slave, by driving the free 
people from their native land, that it originated in hatred 
to us, and that it has increased prejudice a thousand fold, 
by asserting that we are " too debased to be reached by 
heavenly light. It is sustained by constant and artful ap- 
peals to the prejudices of our white brethren and sisters, 
against our complexions, and we view all their proceed- 
ings with abhorrence, and receive their protestations of 
kindness, as the most bitter mockery." And, again, in 
speaking of an Anti-Slavery lecturer whom she had heard, 
she writes thus : " He proved so clearly what we feel so 



APPEAL. 



deeply, that the. Colonization Society originated in hatred 
to the free people of color."* Shall we refuse then, the 
testimony of this sufferer, shall we turn a deaf ear to 
her experience, when she lifts her voice in the accents of 
agony and warning, as to the true cause of- the increase 
of this soul-withering prejudice. In the bitterness of her 
heart she exclaims, " O the guilt, the heavy load of guilt 
that rests on the heads of colonizationists ! may God in 
his mercy open their eyes before it be too late. We pity 
while we fear them," 

Bat look at the principles of our two Societies, and 
judge for yourselves which of them would legitimately 
produce the monster prejudice. On the banner of one is 
written " the people of color must, in this country, remain 

FOR AGES, PROBABLY FOREVER, A SEPARATE AND INFERIOR 

caste, weighed down by causes powerful, universal, f?i- 
evitable, which neither legislation nor Christianity can re- 
move." On that of the other is inscribed in characters of 
light, " Human rights — prejudice vincible. 'Whatso- 
ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
to them.' If ye have respect to colors, ye commit sin.'* 
Let the swift witness for truth in your own bosoms decide 
the question. 

But our colored sisters are oppressed in other ways. 
As they walk the streets of our cities, they are continu- 
ally liable to be insulted with the vulgar epithet of "nig- 
ger;" no matter how respectable or wealthy, they cannot 
visit the Zoological Institute of New-York except in the 
capacity of nurses or servants — no matter how worthy, • 
they cannot gain admittance into or receive assistance 
from any of the charities of this city. In Philadelphia, 
they are cast out of our Widow's Asylum, and their chil- 
dren are refused admittance to the House of Refuge, the 
Orphan's House and the Infant School connected with 
the Aims-House, though into these are gathered the very 
offscouring of our population. These are only specimens 
of that soul-crushing influence from which the colored 
women of the north are daily suffering. Then-, again, 

* Tn good keeping with this assertion we would state that when the only official 
agent they ever sent to England, was about to sail, a friend observed to him that. he 
had heard of his intended visit to England. "Ye-," said he, " but I am not going oui 
of any love to the niggers." Would abolitionists have sent out such an agent ' 



APPEAL. 



53 



some of them have been robbed of their husbands and 
children by the heartless kidnapper, and others have 
themselves been dragged into slavery. If they attempt 
to travel, they are exposed to great indignities and great 
inconveniences. Instances have been known of their 
actually dying in consequence of the exposure to which 
they were subjected on board of our steamboats. No 
money could purchase the use of a berth for a delicate 
female because she had a colored skin. Prejudice, then, 
degrades and fetters the minds, persecutes and murders 
the bodies of our free colored sisters. Shall we be silent 
at such a time as this ? shall we say prejudice is an in- 
nate feeling, implanted by God in our hearts ? shall we 
blaspheme His holy name by saying in other words that 
He has taught us, yea caused us to hate our brother ? 
Or shall we not rather arise in the moral strength of our 
womanhood and our Christianity, and cast out this foul 
demon from our hearts, our houses, and our churches, 
in the name of the Lord of light and of love ? 

X. THE SOUTH IS APPEALING TO THE NORTH. 

The last reason we shall urge is the fact that the South 
is appealing to us for help in the overthrow of slavery. 
From the " Appeal to Christian women of the South " we 
learn that a lady in North Carolina made the following 
remark about two years ago : ?' Northerners know noth- 

I ing at all about slavery ; they think it is perpetual bond- 
age only, but of the depth of degradation that word in- 
volves they have no conception ; if they had, they would 
never cease their efforts until so horrible a system was over- 
thrown." Here, then, is a strong appeal to JYortherners 
to put forth their unceasing energies to overthrow the sys- 
tem of Southern oppression. Those women in the slave 
States who are mourning over the abominations of the land, 
feel that a spirit of reform on this subject can no more be 
expected to originate among slaveholders than a tem- 

1 perance reform or a moral reformation among those most 
deeply involved in the sins of drunkenness and licentious- 
ness. Their appeal is to the North. Another lady from 
the South, a slaveholder, who visited Philadelphia last 
fall, remarked to an abolitionist that, until Northern wo- 
5# 



54 



APPEAL, 



men did their duly on this great subject, it could not be 
expected that Southern women would do theirs. She ap- 
peared surprised at the apathy of the free States when 
she became acquainted with the extent to which they were 
involved in the crime of slavery ; she had never thought 
on .these things before, and encouraged her friends, who 
had enlisted in the Anti-Slavery cause, saying, if youac- 
complish your object, you will do a great work, and be a 
blessing to our country. These appeals are from South- 
ern women — shall we disregard them ? 

We will now relate a circumstance that occurred to The- 
odore D. Weld, when he was lecturing in Pittsburgh, Pa. 
in 1835. At the close of one of his evening lectures, a 
man sought him through the crowd, and extending his hand 
to him through his friends, by whom he was surrounded, so- 
licited him to step aside with him for a moment. After they 
had retired by themselves to some corner of the house, says 
the man, "I am a slaveholder from Maryland — andyouare 
right, the doctrine you advocate is the truth. " • "Why, 
then," said the lecturer, "do you not emancipate your 
slaves ?" " Because," replied the Mary lander, " J have 
not religion enough fo" — he was a professed Christian — 
" I have not sufficient moral courage to do so under the 
existing state of public sentiment — I dare not subject 
myself to the torrent of opposition which, from the pres- 
ent state of public sentiment, would be poured upon me; 
but do you abolitionists go on, and you will effect a 
change in public sentiment which will render it possible 
and easy for us to emancipate our slaves. I know," con- 
tinued he, " a great many slaveholders in my State who 
stand on precisely the same ground that I do in relation 
to this matter. Only produce a correct public sentiment at 
the North, and the work is. done ; for all that keeps the South 
in countenance while continuing this system, is the apology 
and argument afforded so generally by the North ; only pro- 
duce a right feeling in the North generally, and the South 
cannot stand before it ; let the North be thoroughly convert- 
ed, and the work is at once accomplished at the jSou//i." 
Another fact which may be adduced to prove that the 
South is looking to the North for help, is the following : 
At an Anti-Slavery concert of prayer for the oppressed, 



APPEAL. 



55- 



held in New- York city, in 1836, a gentleman arose in 
the course of the meeting, declaring, himself a Virginian 
and a slaveholder. He said he came to that city filled 
with the deepest prejudice against the abolitionists, by 
the reports given of their character in papers published 
at the North. But he determined to investigate their 
character and designs for himself. He even boarded in the 
family of an abolitionist, and attended the monthly concert 
of prayer for the slaves and the slaveholders. And now, 
as the result of his investigations and observations, he 
was convinced that not only the spirit but the principles 
and measures of the abolitionists ARE RIGHTEOUS. 
He was now ready to emancipate his own slaves, and had 
commenced advocating the doctrine of immediate eman- 
cipation — "and here," said he, pointing to two men sit- 
ting near him, are the first fruits of my labors — these 
two fellow Virginians and slaveholders are converts, with 
myself to abolitionism. And I know a thousand Virgin- 
ians who need only to be made acquainted with the true 
spirit and principles of abolitionists in order to their be- 
coming converts as we are. Let the abolitionists go on in 
the dissemination of their doctrines, and let the JYorthern 
papers cease to misrepresent them at the South — let the true 
light of abolitionism be fully shed upon the Southern mind 3 
and the work of immediate and general emancipation will 
be speedily accomplished." — Morn. Star. 

But a still more powerful appeal has been made to us. 
Two of our Southern sisters who were once slaveholders, 
have come up from the land of worse than Egyptian bond- 
age, and besought us as women, as Americans, as. Chris- 
tians, to awake from the slumber of apathy, and to rise in 
all the power of female influence, to the high and holy du- 
ty of rebuking the sin of oppression at the South, and the 
sin of prejudice at the North. Their testimony against 
the abominations of slavery is fully laid before the public 
— that testimony must be admitted, by every candid mind, 
to be unexceptionable ; for what but a deep and solemn 
sense of duty to the suffering slave could induce them to 
throw themselves out so prominently as witnesses against 
a system of which their nearest and dearest relatives are 
now the advocates and practical supporters? They have 



56 



APPEAL. 



declared to us that no one who has not been an hdegral 
part of this system, can form any idea of the wreck of 
temper and of morals which slavery produces. They 
have told us that it is not for the slave alone that they plead, 
but for the master and the mistress also — for the op- 
pressor cannot wield the iron rod of his power without hav- 
ing his conscience seared, his heart hardened, his moral 
susceptibilities blunted, and his spiritual eye darkened. 
They have been nursed in the arms, pillowed on the bo- 
som and cradled on the lap of slavery. They have lived 
from infancy up to womanhood behind that painted curtain 
which hangs before the scenes of private life. They tell 
us (and surely they ought to know whereof they affirm) that 
the folds of this tapestry are too artfully and studiously dis- 
posed by the hands of petty tyrants, to admit of the heed- 
less glances of Northern visiters discovering the wretch- 
edness and crime and cruelty which exists behind it. 
Take one single instance as an illustration. A gentleman 
of this city was in New-Orleans four years ago, at the time 
that the atrocious cruelties of Madame LaLoirie were dis- 
covered and her house torn down by the mob. He said 
that only a few days previous to this circumstance, he had 
dined with that — what shall we call her? not woman, that 
were too noble a title — that slaveholder, and that he had 
not the least suspicion of those deeds of darkness and of 
death which were transacting even then in the garret and 
the cellar. The sunshine of Southern hospitality illumi- 
nated her parlor with all the light of fashionable etiquette 
and hollow-hearted politeness, and the sounding brass and 
the tinkling symbol drowned the groan of the captive suf- 
ferer and the stifled wail of the lacerated and dying slave 
and the clank of his fetters and the moanings which told 
how the iron had entered into his soul. He was the guest 
of the mistress; he sat in her parlor; he sat down to her 
board — and what did he know ? How could he know of 
those hidden works of darkness which she understood as 
well how to conceal as how to perpetrate ? 

These sisters tell us that the testimony of a Northern 
woman, who, when she went to the South two years since, 
made it her business to inquire into the real condition of 
things, is correct. In a letter to a friend in Philadelphia, 



APPEAL. 



57 



sho says, " On coming South, we found that although we 
had heard so much of slavery, the half, the worst half too, 
had never been told us ; not that we have seen anything 
of cruelty ourselves, though truly we have felt its deaden- 
ing influence, and the accounts we hear from every tongue 
that nobly dares to speak the truth, are deplorable indeed." 
They are now in our free States, to which they were driven 
by the cries of the sufferers they had no power to re- 
lieve — they remonstrated and rebuked and entreated in 
vain ; there was no spirit of reform there — no wish to de- 
liver those who were drawn unto death — no ear open to 
receive the truth — no heart to feel for the multiplied 
wrongs of the outraged victim of oppression. They fled 
to our Northern States, and their hearts beat high with the 
expectation of mingling with spirits who could weep over 
the down-trodden slave ; but did they find such spirits ? 
did they meet with those who sympathized in his sorrows 
and labored for his redemption? No! to their grief and 
amazement they found that the North was wrapped in pro- 
found darkness and apathy ; the gushing fountain of feeling 
was almost frozen, and they had well nigh despaired of the 
bondmaa ever being released, except by the strong arm of 
vengeance in the midst of the war-cyy, the roar of the can- 
non, and the exterminating judgments of an angry God. 
A lowering cloud had gathered over the land of their birth 
full of the judgments of God; and in awful suspense they 
watched it, deepening and expanding as the oppressor 
year after year treasured up for himself wrath against the 
day of wrath and the righteous retribution of Heaven. 
They had well nigh sunk down in utter hopelessness, as 
their aching eyes rested on the dark cloud that thickened 
with gloomy portents and careered with thunderings, but a 
star had already arisen in the east, though they knew it 
not. They had heard some rumor of a fiery comet which 
had glared on the sky, and thrown far and wide its wild 
and fierce sweepings, threatening murder and war. Their 
hearts trembled with fear, they turned away from the spec- 
tacle, they refused to listen for a while ; but duty, sol- 
emn duty, forced upon their minds the necessity of seeing 
for themselves ; they seized the telescope of truth, they 
scanned the frightful meteor, and what was their joy at 



53 



APPEAL. 



finding that it was the star of hope, the harbinger of cer- 
tain and speedy deliverance to those over whom they had 
so often wept in secret places. And now, beloved sisters, 
they have given themselves wholly to the cause of imme- 
diate, unconditional, universal emancipation. They ask 
our help — thy invite us all to join battle with the foes of 
freedom in this great moral contest — they beckon us on- 
ward — shall we respond? or shall we stop our ears to the 
cry of the poor sent ep te our Northern States through 
their lips and thei* pens ? 

HOW NORTHERN WOMEN CAN HELP THE CAUSE OF 
•MANCIPATION. 

We come next to the second grand division of our sub- 
ject : we are now to show you how Northern women can 
help the cause of abolition. That we be not further tedious 
unto you, we will endeavor to be concise. We would I 
answer, they can organize themselves into Anti-Slavery | 
Societies, and thus add to the number of those beaming 
stars which are already pouring their cheering rays upon 
the dreary pathway of the slave. Let the women of the 
free States multiply these, until a perfect galaxy of light 
and glory stretches over our Northern hemisphere. By 
joining an Anti-Slavery Society #t t"^rae a responsibil- 
ity — we pledge ourselves to the cause — we openly avow 
that we are on the side of the down-trodden and the dumb 
— we declare that slavery is a crime against God and 
against man — and we swell the tide of that public opinion 
which in a few years is to sweep from our land this vast 
system of oppression and robbery and licentiousness and 
heathenism. But be not satisfied with merely setting 
your names to a constitution — this is a very little thing : 
read on the subject — none of us have yet learned half the 
abominations of slavery. We wish that every Northern 
woman could read "Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws;" 
they are as a code worthy of the remark made by Summers 
of Virginia, when speaking of the laws of that State alone. 
" How will the provisions of our slave code be viewed in 
after time ? I fear some learned antiquary may use them 
as a portion of his evidence to prove the barbarism of the 
present enlightened and Christian era ; I fear lest he may 



APPEAL. 



59 



not understand the necessity which with us justifies our 
attempt to annihilate the mind of a portion of our race." 
How monstrous must be those statutes which seek the 
annihilation of the immortal mind of man ! how tremen- 
dous the crime ! 

Anti-Slavery publications abound ; and no intelligent 
woman ought to be ignorant of this great subject — no Chris- 
tian woman can escape the obligation now resting upon her, 
to examine it for herself. If Anti-Slavery principles and 
efforts are right, she is bound to embrace and to aid them; 
if they are wrong, as the vestal virgins of her country's 
honor and safety, and the church's purity and faith, she is 
bound to oppose them, to crush them if she can. Read, 
then, beloved sisters ; and as many of you as are able, 
i subscribe for one or more Anti-Slavery papers or periodi- 
i cals, and exert your influence to induce your friends to 
I do the same ; and when memory has been stored with 
' interesting facts, lock them not up in her store-house, but 
; tell them from house to house, and strive to awaken inter- 
i est and sympathy and action in others, who, like Galleo 
i of old, "care for none of these things." The seeds of 
1 knowledge must be sown broad-cast over our land- — light 
1 must be increased a thousand-fold — and woman ought to 
• be in this field : it is her duty, her privilege to labor in it 
\ " as woman never yet has labored." 

( By spreading correct information on the subject of 
1 slavery, you will prepare the way for the circulation of 
i numerous petitions, both to the ecclesiastical and civil 
1 authorities of the nation. Presbyterians ought to petition 
I their Presbyteries and Synods and the General Assembly. 
\ Baptists ought to petition their Annual and the Triennial 
: Conventions. Protestant Episcopalians their Conven- 
! tions, and Methodists their Annual and General Con- 
' ferences: beseeching and entreating that they would ban- 
ish slavery from the communion table and the pulpit, and 
« rebuke iron-hearted prejudice from our places of worship. 

Such memorials must ultimately produce the desired effect, 
i Every woman, of every denomination, whatever may be 
' her color or her creed, ought to sign a petition \o Congress 
-for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the dis- 
trict of Columbia, slavery in Florida, and the inter-state 



60 



APPEAL. 



slave traffic. Seven thousands of our brethren and sisters 
are now languishing in the chains of servitude in the cap- 
ital of this republican despotism: their hands are stretched 
out to us for help; they have heard what the women of 
England did for the slaves of the West-Indies —800,000 
women signed the petition which broke the fetters of 
800,000 slaves; and when there are as many signatures 
to the memorials sent up by the women of the United 
States to Congress as there are slaves in our country, 
oh! then will the prison -doors of the South be opened 
by the earthquake of public opinion. 

We believe you may also help this cause by refraining 
from the use of slave-grown products. Wives and moth- 
ers, sisters and daughters, can exert a very extensive 
influence in providing for the wants of a family ; and 
those women whose fortunes have been accumulated by 
their husbands and fathers out of the manufacture and j 
merchandize of such produce, ought to consider them- 
selves deeply indebted to the slave, and be peculiarly 
anxious to bear a testimony against such- participation in 
the gains of oppression, as well as to aid by liberal dona- 
tions in spreading Anti-Slavery principles. 

Much may be done, too, by sympathizing with our op- 
pressed colored sisters, who are suffering in our very 
midst. Extend to them the right hand of fellowship on the 
broad principles of humanity and Christianity, treat them 
as equals, visit them as equals, invite them to co-operate 
with you in Anti-Slavery and Temperance and Moral 
Reform Societies — in Maternal Associations and Prayer 
Meetings and Reading Companies. If you regard them 
as your inferiors, then remember the apostolic injunction 
to " condescend to men of low estate:" here is a precious 
opportunity ; and if it is improved, dear sisters, we feel 
assured you will find your own souls watered and re- 
freshed whilst you are watering others. Opportunities 
frequently occur in travelling, and in other public situa- 
tions, when your countenance, your influence, and your 
hand might shield a sister from contempt and insult, and | 
procure for her comfortable accommodations. Then 
again you can do a great deal towards the elevation of 
our free colored population, by visiting their day-schools, 



APPEAL. 



61 



and teaching in their Sabbath and evening schools, and 
shedding over them the smile of your approbation, and 
aiding them, with pecuniary contributions. Go to their 
places of worship; or, if you attend others, sit not down 
in the highest seats, among the white aristocracy , but go 
down to the despised colored woman's pew, and sit side 
by side with her. Multitudes of instances will continu- 

1 ally occur in which you will have the opportunity of iden- 
tifying yourselves %cith this injured class of our fellow- 

' beings : embrace these opportunities at all times and in 
all places, in the true nobility of our. great Exemplar, M ho 

t was ever found among the poor and the despised, elevating 

■ and blessing them with his counsels and presence. In 
3 this way, and this alone, will'you be enabled to subdue 
\ that deep-rooted prejudice which is doing the work of 
1 oppression in the free States to a most dreadful extent. 

' When this demon has been cast out of your own hearts, 
" when you can recognize the colored woman as a woman 
' — then you be prepared to send out an appeal to our 
1 Southern sisters, entreating them to "go and do likewise." 
" The South has been addressed by a Southern woman — 
she is doubtless expecting, perhaps waiting, for an appeal 

• from her Northern sisters. When will Northern women 
be ready to make such an appeal ? Can they be ready 

; before they have fulfilled their duties to the colored people 

I around their own doors ? A Southern woman, a slave- 
holder, who visited the North last summer, remarked, she 

I was astonished to find that prejudice against color was so 
1 strong and malignant — yes, she was indignant. How, 
1 then, would an address on behalf of the slave from Norlk- 

I I em women appeal to the hearts of such a Southerner ? 

i ' Could she believe its sincerity? or would she not rather 
1 1 turn and say, Go, break the cord of caste in the free 

■ ■ States, and then come and persuade us to break the yoke 
i < of bondage here. Go back to the North, and lift the 

• • colored woman from her low estate there, and then ccme 
r i and talk to us about the slavery of the colored woman 
J I here. Go, pluck the beam out of your own eye first, and 
o 1 then will you see clearly how to pull the mote from ours, 
il 1 Go, "physician, heal thyself." Go, and when you have 
i, : performed your duties, then, aided by that correct public 

6 



62 



APPEAL. 



sentiment which you shall have created at the North — 

then we will do our duties at the South. 

We solemnly believe that the North can labor effectu- 
ally with the South only so far as she overcomes her 
deadly hatred to the free colored man. Prejudice, dear 
sisters, is that Achan in the camp of abolitionists which 
must be brought out and stoned before all the people, before 
we ever can successfully storm the citadel of slavery, or 
even its out-works. Look, then, at the tremendous re- 
sponsibility resting on us at the North. If we do not 
abandon this cherished sin, ice must inevitably become 
individually guilty of keeping our brethren and sisters at 
the South in bondage, just as the Israelites would have 
been individually guilty of producing the continued defeat 
of the army at Ai, if they had refused to surrender Achan 
to the exterminating sentence of the law. 

And since we have set before our white sisters of the 
North their duties to our sisters of color, so now we would 
tenderly solicit their indulgence whilst we throw out some 
suggestions to them. You, beloved sisters, have impor- 
tant duties to perform at this crisis, duties no less dignified 
and far more delicate and difficult. You daily feel the 
sorrowful effects of the prejudice which is exercised to- 
wards those peculiarities of form with which our heavenly 
Father has stamped you. It is your allotment to bear the 
cruel scorn and aversion in a thousand different ways. 
Your hearts often bleed at the heedless expression and 
studied avoidance — your spirits are often cast down under 
the glance of contempt and the smile of heartless cour- 
tesy, and you feel afraid to come into our presence unless 
assured that we can greet you as human beings, as wo- 
men, as sisters; and often, perhaps, when duty calls you 
into associations with us, you shrink back and refuse to 
come, lest haply some among us may be too delicate to 
sit beside you, too fastidious to bear the contact. We 
know such things must be mortifying, and hard, very- 
hard to endure, especially from your professed friends; but 
we entreat you to " bear with us a little in our folly," for 
we have so long indulged this prejudice, that some of us 
find it exeedingly difficult to divest our minds of it. We 
fully believe that it is not a plant of our Father's planting, 



APPEAL. 



63 



we are striving to root it up ; have patience then with us 
whilst the struggle continues, and when it is over we shall 
be able to labor more effectually than ever for you. You 
must be willing to mingle with us whilst we have the pre- 
judice, because it is only by associating with you that we 
shall ever be able to overcome it. You must not avoid 
our society whilst we are in this transition state. "And 
indeed bear with us " for our own sokes ; as women, as 
Christians, we are ashamed of our folly and sin, and we 
entreat your aid to help us to overcome and abandon it. 
We know that we have not the same mind in us which 
was in Christ Jesus, and you can confer no greater favor 
upon us than in thus for a season "bearing all things, be- 
lieving all things, hoping all things, enduring all things." 
Put on, therefore, towards us, your weak and erring sis- 
ters, that charity which is the bond of perfectness, that 
charity which never faileth. We crave your sympathy 
and prayers: we deeply feel our need of them. 

But there is one thing which above all others we be- 
seech you to do for this glorious cause. Pray for it. Pray 
without ceasing ; for unless all your efforts are baptized 
with prayer, they can never return into your own bosoms 
with the blessing of Heaven, they can never effectually 
help forward this work. We have no confidence in effort 
without prayer, and no confidence in prayer without effort. 
We believe them as inseparably connected as are faith and 
works. And if any woman tell us that she prays but can- 
not labor for the slave, we must reply to her in the lan- 
guage of James, in reference to faith and works — show 
me prayers without effort, and we will show thee our pray- 
ers by our efforts. Yes! sisters — we want you to be per- 
suaded of this, because we are assured that an utter fal- 
lacy passes among us for sound doctrine. There is noth- 
ing more common than to hear such expressions as these 
from the lips of men and women who are doing nothing 
to set the bondman free, we are as much Anti-Slavery as 
you, we abhor slavery as much as any one possibly can. 
Away with such hypocritical pretensions to sympathy ! 
It is just that kind of sympathy which says to the naked 
and hungry, "Depart in peace, be you warmed and 
filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things 



64 



APPEAL. 



which are needful to the body." Well may ice -exclaim 
w.ith the Apostle ".what doth it profit ?" We believe in no 
such Anti-SIayery principles, for full 'Well do we know thai 
our principles possess a life and power which must prompt 
to acti'on a spirit which will live in our life and breathe in 
our words. 

Ah ! but we are told- — the measures, the measures we 
cannot unite-with. What is the matter with the" measures ? 
Why, there is such a daring of public opinion — -such a de- 
termination to carry on this work in spite of .opposition 
when you see that the public are not prepared for it: — 
when you know that they have so .often produced rriobs.- 

Ancf how, we would ask, is the public to be prepared^ 
for the reception of these great doctrines ? By. throwing 
a bushel over the candle of truth, because the organs of 
spiritual vision are pained by its radiance in consequence 
of the moral darkhess in. which they have so long been, 
involved ?U- or, by jstill continuing to hold- forth the word of 
life until the eye gradually becomes accustomed- to the 
lights and at last receives it without-pain. "What did our 
Lord mean by calling his disciples the light of the world y 
and by commanding them to let their light's so- shine before 
meii, .that they might see their good works. Did he mean 
they must cease to preach the truth as soon a's wicked and 
deceitful 1 men opposed the truth, and blasphemed it ? Let us 
learn his meaning from his actions, for He embodied all 
his principles in his glorious life'. lie , did "not speak or 
profess one thing while He acted another. Let us then 
trace the history of Jesus — let us see whether he propa- 
gated doctrines obnoxious to public opinion, adverse to the 
views of the dignitaries of Church and of State-, and 
whether, when he- was traduced and opposed, he bowed 
to popular tumult, and clamor, or stood erect, uprearing 
the light of truth in- the tempest of passion which howled, 
around him. ' .- ' ' . * . ■ ' 

, " - ' EXAMPLE OF JESUS . AND- IJIS APOSTLES^ • . 

In early childhood his. life was sought by Herod, and' 
during ail his sojourn in the flesh, " he waVa man of sor-. 
rows and acquainted with 1 grief," beset by cruel enemies*', 
who went about to kill . him k Sometimes the Jews were 



APPEAL. 65 

so incensed, that they took up stones to cast at him because 
"they perceived that he spake his parables against them." 
At one time "they thrust him out of the city (of Naza- 
reth) and led him to the brow of the hill that they might cast 
him down headlong, but he passing through the midst of 
them went his way. ' ' At last a great mob, armed with swords 
and with staves, came out to take him ; and after being 
betrayed by one of his own disciples, and mocked and 
scourged by his enemies, he was put todeath, although "He 
did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." Judea 
was in a ferment, and the hearts of th« people were 
moved as the trees of the wood by the sweeping blast. 
But did all this opposition silence the tongue of Him, 
who <e spake as never man spake ?" No! he went about 
from city to city, and from village to village, here in the 
synagogue and there by the sea-shore, and then again in 
Peter's ship as it floated on Genezareth, everywhere 
preaching those very truths whi^h excited to wrath the un- 
believing Jews. 

But from the example of him who was " God manifest 
in the flesh," let us turn to those who were " men of like 
passions with ourselves." Was Stephen deterred from 
proclaiming the truth because "the Jews stirred up the 
people and elders and the scribes and came upon him 
and brought him to the council, and set up false witnesses 
against him ?" $o! he seized upon this very opportunity 
to trace their history from the call of Abraham, and to 
prove by recorded facts, that they had "always resisted 
the Holy Ghost," as their fathers did, so also had they 
done, in being the betrayers and murderers of that Just 
One, whose coming their own prophets had foretold. And 
what were the consequences? Did the Spirit and the pow- 
er by which he spake convince them ? No! they were 
cut to the heart, and gnashed upon him with their teeth; 
and even whilst he was full of the Holy Ghost, "they 
cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and 
ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, 
and stoned him." He died by the hands of a lawless mob. 
And what effect did this violent opposition produce on the 
Apostles ? Did they withhold the truth because the peo- 
ple were unwilling to hear it ? or did they fearlessly and 
6* 



66 



APPEAL. 



perseveringly "dare public opinion, " by their obnoxious 
doctrines ? Let the conduct of. Peter and John answer 
this query. _ : . 

And how did the great Apostle of the Gentiles bear him- 
self? Was. he deterred from his work by what he had 
witnessed at the stoning of Stephen ? And when convert- 
ed to that faith which he orice destroyed, was he satis- 
fied with merely ceasing to do evil, or did he also go about 
preaching that gospel which was to the Jews a stumbling- 
block, and to the Greeks foolishness ? After the scales 
fell from his eyes,. " straightway he preached Christ hi 
the synagogue — that he is the Son of God ; " and when by 
the power of his arguments, he confounded the Jews that 
dwelt at Damascus, and they took counsel to slay him, he 
was let down by night in a basket from the wall,. and fled 
to Arabia. We afterwards find him in Jerusalem, where 
he preached, until" the Grecians went about to slay him," 
when he was sent to Arabia. At Antioch he preached 
the humiliating doctrine that through the very man Christ 
Jesus, who had been condemned and executed as a male-, 
factor, the Jews must obtain forgiveness of sins, and.be. 
justified from. all things from which they could not be justi-. 
ged by the law of Moses. This roused their malice and 
envy- so that they contradicted and blasphemed, and spake 
against those things which were spoken by Paul ; and 
even succeeded in stirring up the people and the devout, 
and honorable women, and raised persecution against Paul 
and Barnabas and expelled them out of their coasts. • 

At Iconium they preached with such power that a great 
multitude, both of the Jews and also of the Greeks, be- 
lieved; yet still the unbelieving Jews stirred up the peo- 
ple, and made their minds evil-affected towards the breth- 
ren; and when an assault was made, both by the people 
and their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone 
them, they fled into Lystra. Here, too, Paul was beset 
by a mob and stoned, and drawn out of the city and left 
as dead. Did all these persecutions prevent him from 
promulgating the truths of the gospel ? No ! In labors 
he was more abundant than any of the Apostles, and his 
zeal was equalled only by the virulence with which he 
was opposed everywhere. We next find him at Thessa- 



APPEAL. 



67 



lonica; where the Jews set all the city in an uproar, and 
assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring the 
Apostles out to the people, but they fled to Berea, where 
it is stated " they received the word with all readiness 
of mind and searched the Scriptures daily to know whether 
these things were so:" the. consequence of which was, that 
honorable ivomen here believed the very truths which the de- 
vout and honorable women of Antioch. rejected, through 
ignorance and prejudice, having suffered themselves. to 
become dupes of those malignant Jews who stirred up 
the people against the Apostles. 

OPPOSITION TO TRUTH SHOULD NOT SILEXCE ITS AD- 
. . . VOCATES. 

It is no new thing for the truth to be opposed by vio- 
lence, and its promulgators mobbed • from city to city. 

• And if Paul felt it his duty to perse vere in preaching it 
notwithstanding the uproars, confusion and insurrections 
which were raised to crush it, we can see no reason why 
.abolitionists should- cease their efforts on behalf of the 

; suffering slave, because mobs are raised against'them in 
'New-^iork, Boston, Utica and Cincinnati. If (as some 
have asserted) abolitionists raised these moos, then with 

I equal truth it may be said that Paul and Barnabas raised 
those of Antioch, Lystra, E/phesus and Jerusalem. In 

; view" of these facts, what is the duty of the friend of the 
sjave ? We answer unhesitatingly, to go cm fearlessly, 
uncompromisingly and pacifically to. preach the truth and 
nothing but the truth, in. the whole length and breadth of 
our land. Those who raise these mobs are responsible 
for that spirit of anarchy and violence, which they are 
producing,, and not those who are the innocent victims of 
such outrages. 
• In the lives of Jesus and his Apostles, do we find our 
warrant for breasting the furious waves of public opinion, 
for keeping our ranks in righteousness unbroken, and for 
steadily holding up the unfli.ckering flame of truth, in the 
midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And we 
must believe that if there were any real principle, any liv- 
ing sympathy in the hearts of those who are " as much 
Anti-Slavery as we are," and yet condemn our measures, 



68 



APPEAL. 



that instead of doing nothing they would devise measures 
of their own, and if their measures were the right meas- 
ures doubtless they would prevail and we should be 
driven from the field. If we do wrong, it is no excuse for 
their doing nothing at soch an awful crisis as the present. 

MINISTERIAL ADVOCATES OF SLAVERY. 

The abolitionists have stood by that altar which avarice 
and lust of power have consecrated to the demon of sla- 
very, and they have solemnly protested that the priests 
who offered human sacrifices upon her shrine, would them- 
selves be doomed by the indignant voice of coming gene- 
rations. The Jeroboams of the South and the North 
have put forth their hands from that altar, saying, " lay 
hold on them," but their hands, like that of the presump- 
tuous monarch of Israel, have withered in the impious at- 
tempt to close the lips of those who have been raised up 
in this " hypocritical nation " to " show the people their 
transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." Yes! 
those ministers of the gospel who defend slavery from 
the Bible are the priests of this bloody Moloch, and as 
the light of day makes manifest the pollutions which 
cover objects around us, so will the light of truth reveal 
the corruption of those professed ministers of Christ, who 
have blasphemed the name of our God by affixing the 
counterfeit seal of his approbation to the abominations of 
this system of moral, mental night and ruin. For the 
bold utterance of the truth, and delivering the message 
to the people which was entrusted to them, they have been 
traduced and persecuted even unto strange cities. 

IT IS THE PROVINCE OF WOMAN TO LABOR IN THIS 
CAUSE. 

If our brethren, then, have suffered and dared so much 
in the cause of bleeding humanity, shall we not stand side 
by side with them in the bloodless contest ? Is it true 
that the women of France often follow their husbands and 
their brothers to the sanguinary contest, putting on the 
soldier's armor, and facing the fierceness of war's grim 
visage of death ? And shall American women refuse to 
follow their husbands, fathers and brothers into the wide 



APPEAL. 



69 



field of moral enterprise and holy aggressive conflict with 
the master sin of the American republic, and the American 
church ? Oh, no! we know the hearts of Our sisters too 
well. — we sec ithem already girding on the whole armor 
of God, already gatheriug in the plain and on the moun- 
tain, in the crowded cities of our seaboard, and the little 
villas and hamlets of the country ; We see them cheering 
with their smiles and strengthening* with* their , prayers 
and aiding with their* efforts that noble band of patriots, 
philanthropists and Christians, who have come up to the 
help -of the Lord against .the mighty. We see them 
meekly bowing to the obloquy and uncovering their heads 
to the curses which. are heaped by Southern slaveholders 
Upon all who rememher those who are in bonds.- Woman 
is how rising in he"r womanhood, to throw from her, with 
one hand the paltry privileges with which man has invested 
her, of conquering by fashionable charms and winning by 
personal attractions, whilst with the other she grasps the 
right of' woman to unite in holy copartnership with man, 
1 in the renovation-of a fallen world. She tramples these 
1 glittering baubles in the dust, and takes from the hand of 
her Creator, the Magna Charta of her high prerogatives 
'as a moral^ an intellectual, an accountable being — t% wo- 
man, who, though placed in subjection to the monarch of 
J the world, is still the crown and "the glory of the man." 
' - When Jehovah was about to erect in the wilderness of 
Sinai a tabernacle in which he was to walk amidst his 
'chosen people, was it built by the contributions and the 
labprs of man only ? Did jiot woman lend her aid to the 
holy work*? - What saith the Scripture ? "The chil- 
dren of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord, 
every man and every woman whose heart made them 
willing to bring for all manner of work, which the Lord 
' had comananded to be made by the hand of Moses." 
5 And -if Bezaleel and Aholiab were " filled with wisdom 
of heart to work all manner of work, so also the women 
"that were wise-hearted,, and did spin with their hands, 
5 an-d /brought that -which they had spUn, both of purple 
!! and of blue and of scarlet and of fine linen." . 
Woman, as WelLas man, .put forth her energy and in- 
genuity in preparing materials for the building of the tab- 



70 



APPEAL. 



ernacle. She labored unitedly with him, and shared with 
him the toils and the honors of bringing willing offerings 
to the tabernacle of the congregation of the Lord. And 
when our fathers pitched the tabernacle of freedom in this 
western wilderness, did not woman cheer them onwarcLin 
the privations and sufferings they were called to endure ? 
They well knew that the government they erected could 
not be permanent: it was like the tabernacle of Sinai, set 
up in the midst of thunderings and lightnings, and a thick 
cloud, and the voice of the trumpet waxing louder and 
louder. 

But we live, beloved sisters, in a very different era. 
The Lord has raised up men whom he has endowed with 
" wisdom and understanding and knowledge" to lay deep 
and broad the foundations of the temple of liberty. This 
is a great moral work in which they are engaged. No 
war-trumpet summons to the field of battle, but wisdom 
crieth without: "she uttereth her voice in the streets" — 
" whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring an offer- 
ing." Shall woman refuse her response to the call ? or, 
will she not rather surrender herself to the work, and 
throw the sympathies of her heart and the gems of her 
intellect into the treasury of this temple ? Was she 
originally created to be a help meet for man — his sorrows 
to divide, his joys to share and all his toils to lighten by 
her willing aid ? and shall she refuse to aid him with her 
prayers, her labors, and her counsels, too, at such a time, 
in such a cause as this ? 



xxxxxxxxxxxxx: 




APPEAL TO THE WOMEN 



NOMINALLY FREE STATES, 



ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION^ 

OF 

AMERICAN WOMEN. 

Held by adjournments from the 9th to the 12th of May, 1837. 



We are thy sisters. — God has truly said, 
That of one blood the nations he has made. 
Oh, Christian woman ! in a Christian land, 
Canst thou unblushing read this great comn 

To draw one throb of pity on thy part; 
Our skins may differ, but from thee we claim 



I 



Secontr HMtton. 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY ISAAC KNAPP, 



1838. 



<xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 




NEW BOOKS, 

FOR SALE BY 

ISAAC KNAPP, 25 CORNHILL, BOSTON. 



The Province of Woman. Letters on the Equality 
of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman, addressed to Mary 
S. Parker, President of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety. By Sarah M. Grimke. Price 25 cents, (bound.) 

Authentic Narrative of James Williams. An 
American Slave, who was for several years a Driver on a Cot- 
ton Plantation in Alabama. Price 25 cents, (bound.) 

" Oh the slave, who toils from the rising sun to sundown — who labors in the cul- 
tivation of a crop whose fruits he may never reap — who comes home at nightfall 
weary, faint, and sick of heart, to find in his hut creatures that are to run in the 
same career with himself, — will you not tell him of a period when his toil shall be 
at an end .' Will you not give him a hope for his children I "— Sjwech. of O'Connell. 
London, 1833. 

Note The reader of this work is referred to John G. Whittier, of Amesbury, 
Mass., or to the following gentlemen, who have heard the whole or a part of his_ 
story from his own lips; Emmor Kimber, of Kimberton, Pa., Lindley Coates, of 
Lancaster Co., do. -, James Alott, of Philadelphia, Lewis Tappan, Elizur Wright, 
Jun.. Rev. Dr. Follen, and James G. Birney, of New- York. The latter gentleman, 
who was a few years ago a citizen of Alabama, assures us that the statements 
made to him by James Williams were such as he had every reason to believe, from 
his own knowledge of slavery in that State. 

Slavery illustrated in its Effects upon Woman 
and Domestic Society. Price 31 cents, (bound.) 

'A generation, O how lofty are their eyes! — whose teeth are as 9words. and 
their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from oft" the earth, and the needy from 
among men ! ' — Agar. 'They have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for 
wine, that they might drink! ' — Jo£L. ; They sold the righteous for silver, and the 
poor for a pair of shoes ; and turn aside the way of the meek. A man and his_ fa- 
ther will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name ! ' — Amos. 



Preparing for publication. 

History of the Controversy respecting Slaver , 
during the first seven years, and of American Anti-Slaverv 
Societies, from the year 1830 to 1838. 

The work will comprise a compendious memorial of all the important facts 
every kind which have transpired during the first seven years of the conflict relative 
to slavery in the United States of America. Ft is designed to make it a standard 
volume, that shall embody every essentially illustrative topic, remote or immediate, 
which is connected with the grand inspiring theme — and thus to present to our 
citizens, and especially to all the members of Anti-Slavery Societies, an authentic \ 
narrative of the affecting disputation from, official documents, and a chronological 
record sufficiently comprehensive, to supersede all reference to any other work, un- ; 
less where very minute details or the precise phraseology may be indispensable. 

CO" It will be published by Isaac Knapp, 25 Cornhill, Boston, | 
with all convenient despatch, and will contain at least 450 pp. 
royal octavo. Price to subscribers $1.50. 



Anti-Slavery Agency Oillce, 25 Cornnill, Boston. 

Isaac Knapp is Agent for all the publications of the American i 
Anti-Slavery Society. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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